Posted 4 years ago on Sept. 21, 2012, 8:47 a.m. EST by shadz66
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"U.S. Policy to Israel, Palestine Must Change",

"The United States remains complicit in the ongoing systematic violation of human rights by the Israeli government."

by Jill Stein, Green Party Presidential Candidate.

United States policy regarding Israel and Palestine must be revised to make international law, peace and human rights for all people, no matter their religion or nationality, the central priorities. While the U.S. government sometimes voices support for this principle in name, in practice U.S policy towards Palestine and Israel has violated this principle more often than not.

In particular, the United States has encouraged the worst tendencies of the Israeli government as it pursues policies of occupation, apartheid, assassination, illegal settlements, blockades, building of nuclear bombs, indefinite detention, collective punishment, and defiance of international law.

Instead of allying with the courageous proponents of peace within Israel and Palestine, our government has rewarded consistent abusers of human rights. There is no peace or justice or democracy at the end of such a path. We must reset U.S. policy regarding Israel and Palestine, as part of a broader revision of U.S. policy towards the Middle East.

On taking office, I will put all parties on notice – including the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and the Hamas administration in Gaza – that future U.S. support will depend on respect for human rights and compliance with international law. All three administrations will also be held responsible for preventing attacks by non-state actors on civilians or military personnel of any nationality. The parties will be given 60 days to each demonstrate unilateral material progress towards these ends.

Material progress will be understood to include but not be limited to an end to the discriminatory apartheid policies within the state of Israel, the removal of the Separation Wall, a ban on assassination, movement toward denuclearization, the release of all political prisoners and journalists from Israeli and Palestinian prisons, disarmament of non-state militias, and recognition of the right of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Failure by any party to demonstrate sufficient material progress will result in the end of U.S. military and economic aid to that party. Should the end of U.S. aid fail to cause a party to redirect its policies and to take steps resulting in sufficient material progress within an additional 60 days, I will direct my State Department to initiate diplomacy intended to isolate and pressure the offending party, including the use of economic sanctions and targeted boycott. In this way, U.S. policy will begin to become consistent with its practices regarding other violators of human rights and international law in the region.

Consistency in U.S. policy regarding human rights and international law will begin, but not end, with Palestine and Israel. I will apply this same approach to other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen, among others. I will also ensure that the United States begins to honor its obligations to protect human rights, and will expect that the world community will hold us to the same account we hold others.

Finally, as President I will put the full weight of the United States behind the establishment of a Palestine and Israel Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the vehicle for shifting from an era of human rights violations to one based on trust and bringing all parties together to seek solutions. Any stakeholder who enters into this process must pledge to work for a solution that respects the rights of all involved. This will bring America’s Middle East policy into alignment with American values. I understand that in the end, a dedicated commitment to justice will further American interests in the region much better than the current policies of supporting abuses and violence by one side against the other. And I believe that this is in the best interests of all people living in Israel and Palestine.

''Did you hear that the president of Israel said Israel is a “sick society”? Reuven Rivlin, a Likudnik, said this over the weekend. There’s been lots of coverage in Israel, but as Sullivan points out, the declaration hasn’t gotten much attention stateside. I should think it would be viral.''

''Activists for justice in Palestine often stress that their campaign is aimed at Israel, not at Jews – an understandable position, particularly in light of Israeli propaganda’s manic insistence that every criticism of Israel is, by definition, an expression of anti-Semitism. But as a religious Jew myself, I cannot shrug off Israel’s “Jewish connection” so easily. Jews claim pride in a religious tradition that, as the dissident Israeli historian Ilan Pappe once wrote, has been “the bedrock for cosmopolitanism, socialism and universalism.” But when such a tradition is conscripted by warmongers – as it clearly has been – how can other religious Jews escape the sin of complicity if we allow their abuse of our shared religion to pass without protest?

''The hypocrisy of ignoring our clergy’s role in Israel’s derelictions seems particularly acute, at least to me, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest hallucinatory address to the United Nations, in which he suggested that every child blown to bits in Gaza was really a blow struck on the Syrian battlefield against ISIS. Since the only possible “link” between the two is that most Gazans are Muslims, and since Netanyahu’s assignment of religion-based collective guilt passed with little comment in the West, it’s hard to see how religious Jews can claim immunity when their leadership (unlike most Gazans) actually endorses large-scale war crimes.''

Sadly, Judaism sees itself as exactly that .. an "exception" (as how can the 'unchosen by G*d' ever be worthy?) & perhaps even more sadly, this chimes with both 'American Exceptionalism' {ie the nature of how 'The West Was Won' and the natives dispossessed by 'The Indispensable Nation'} and with Judeo -Christian self-supremacy [conveniently forgetting the ~25% of Palestinians who were Christians and of course feeling superior to desert Muslims] - and also with Neocon espoused 'Clash of Civilisations' and 'Rapturous Religious Beliefs' !!! Emotional irationalities rule it seems !! All while The Climate warms up !

Hubris of course is a prerogative of the falsely haughty, bigoted and ignorant and finally fyi, please see :

Re. the former - ''Once again the treatment of Israel’s Palestinian citizens has exposed the country’s lack of meaningful democracy'' and re. the latter - ''Why It’s Important for Us to Know'' !! Hmmmmmm.

"Why is it important for citizens to know if their representatives in Congress are dual citizens? Because both real and apparent conflicts of interest erode the public trust. If there are dual citizens in Congress or in top levels of the Executive Branch, citizens may reasonably demand that all foreign citizenship be renounced as a condition of high political office.

At the level of individual members, transparency is essential. For example, a constituent should know whether or not another state loyalty is involved when his or her representative speaks out on a major issue, such as on military assistance to Israel or recognition of Palestine as a state. Only if we know who are the dual citizens in Congress and what are their second countries, can we intelligently assess the credibility of their policy statements and actions."

There was a massacre in Jerusalem on Tuesday (18th Nov. '14) in which five Israelis were killed. There was a war in Gaza over the summer in which 2,200 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians. A massacre shocks us; a war, less so. Massacres have culprits; wars don’t. Murder by ax is more appalling than murder by rifle, and far more horrendous than bombing helpless people trying to take shelter.

Terror is always Palestinian, even when hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed. The name and face of Daniel Tragerman, the Israeli boy killed by mortar fire during Operation Protective Edge, were known throughout the world; even U.S. President Barack Obama knew his name. Can anyone name one child from Gaza among the hundreds killed?

A few hours after the attack in Jerusalem, journalist Emily Amrousi said at a conference in Eilat that the life of a single Jewish child was more important to her than the lives of thousands of Palestinian children. The audience’s response was clearly favorable; I think there was even some applause.

Afterward Amrousi tried to explain that she was referring to the way the Israeli media should cover events, which is only slightly less serious. This was during a discussion on the ridiculous question: “Is the Israeli media leftist?” Almost no one protested Amrousi’s remarks and the session continued as if nothing had happened. Amrousi’s words reflect Israel’s mood in 2014: Only Jewish blood elicits shock.

Israeli deaths touch Israeli hearts more than the deaths of others. That’s natural human solidarity. The bloody images from Jerusalem stunned every Israeli, probably every person.

But this is a society that sanctifies its dead to the point of death-worship, that wears thin the stories of the victims’ lives and deaths, whether it be in a synagogue attack or a Nepal avalanche. It’s a society preoccupied with endless commemorations in the land of monuments, services and anniversary ceremonies; a society that demands shock and condemnation after every attack, when it blames the entire world.

Precisely from such a society is one permitted to demand some attention to the Palestinian blood that is also spilled in vain; some understanding of the other side’s pain, or even a measure of empathy, which in Israel is considered treason.

But this doesn’t happen. Aside from exceptional murders and hate crimes by individuals, there is total apathy — and the obtuseness is frightening. Killings (we dare not say murders) by soldiers and policemen will never shock Israel. The propaganda machine will whitewash everything, and the media will be its mouthpiece. No one will demand condemnations. No one will express shock. Few will even consider that the pain is the same pain, that murder is murder.

How many Israelis are willing to give a thought to the parents of Yousef Shawamreh, the boy who went out to pick wild greens and was killed by an army sniper? Why is it exaggerating to be upset by, or at least give some attention to, the killing of Khalil Anati, a 10-year-old boy from the Al-Fawar refugee camp?

Why can’t we identify with the pain of bereaved father Abd al-Wahab Hammad, whose son was killed in Silwad, or with the Al-Qatari family from the Al-Amari refugee camp, two members of which were killed by soldiers within a month? Why do we reserve our horror for the synagogue and not consider these killings disturbing?

Yes, there is the test of intent. The typical Israeli argument is that soldiers, unlike terrorists, do not intend to kill. If so, then what exactly is the intent of the sniper who fires live bullets at the head or chest of a demonstrator a distance away who poses no threat? Or when he shoots a child in the back as he’s running for his life? Didn’t he intend to kill him?

The attack in Jerusalem was a horrendous crime; nothing can justify it. But the blood that flowed there is not the only blood being spilled here murderously. The degree to which it is forbidden to say that is incredible.

[Article copied verbatim under 'Fair Use', from the ICH link above and please refer there for access to all the embedded evidential and corroborative links]

Sit down before you read that piece. It's a very trenchant analysis of how the NY Times depicts Israelis vs. Gazans/Palestinians. Quite sad.

"That an entire population is being kept in a ghetto in Gaza, sealed off from the world and subjected to an incremental genocide, just to protect Israel’s alleged Jewish character, is, for many, a reality too awful to contemplate.

Those wishing to shield themselves from such truths should continue reading The New York Times."

"That an entire population is being kept in a ghetto in Gaza, sealed off from the world and subjected to an incremental genocide, just to protect Israel’s alleged Jewish character, is, for many, a reality too awful to contemplate.Those wishing to shield themselves from such truths should continue reading The New York Times." - because it bears repeating & good job I was sat down !!! Finding ways to say unsayable things as per MSM s-o-p's takes patience !! But then again there's the world outside MSM ! Ergo fyi : http://mondoweiss.net/ & ...

"We have reached a stage in global history in which it is people, not weapons nor international institutions, that have the resilience and patience to win the legitimacy struggle involving law and morality, and on such a basis eventually prevail in the political struggle despite being inferior militarily.

The challenge of living together on the basis of equality seems to be the only template that offers the parties a vision of sustainable peace."

I agree with Falk, that it is the people who will bring the change. And, they will do this on their own, outside the structure of the current political and economic systems that are strangling them. Occupy Wall Street! Never give up fighting for what is right!

Re.''Let us not forget Palestine and the dangers it faces with the Trump presidency'' and trying to touch on information that just can NOT be said on any US/UK MSM ... please try to consider this link:

"Before I go further, I must put to rest a misnomer. Contrary to what’s been reported in the news for years, there is no Israeli-Palestinian conflict. None, zero, zilch, diddly-squat. I can say with confidence that Palestinians have no agency. The Israeli government controls everything in the country. This total control which is most magnified in the West Bank, concerns everything from where Palestinians are permitted to travel, to how much water they consume per month. Currently, there is no ‘conflict,’ only the omnipresent power of the Israeli government and those who resist it. This is important to understand."

''In 2010, Israel’s then-defense minister, Ehud Barak, explicitly warned that Israel would become a permanent “apartheid” state if it failed to reach a peace agreement with Palestinians that creates their own sovereign nation and vests them with full political rights. “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic,” Barak said. “If this bloc of millions of ­Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”

''Honest observers on both sides of the conflict have long acknowledged that the prospects for a two-state solution are virtually non-existent: another way of saying that Israel’s status as a permanent apartheid regime is inevitable. Indeed, U.S. intelligence agencies as early as 45 years ago explicitly warned that Israeli occupation would become permanent if it did not end quickly.

''Even as Western consensus continues to revere the most stalwart supporters of South Africa’s apartheid regime — Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Shimon Peres — it at least now regards apartheid itself in that country as a historic disgrace. History should regard those enabling Israel’s own march to permanent apartheid in exactly the same light. The most aggressive and consistent enablers of this apartheid are found at the top of the U.S. political class.''

You know bw - sometimes I think that folk in US have some kind of dark silent solidarity with Israelis as their nation too was essentially forged by a forced and violent dispossession of native indigenous people and culture. Be that as it may - let justice be done tho' heavens need not fall & here is a tune for u & all:

Fascinating. Just goes to show the hypocritical foundation of the United States. "All men are created equal" "Liberty and justice for all." blah blah, yeah yeah.

5 years ago today it was "Columbus Day." More and more people are coming to see the hypocricies of that holiday and our history, and how we should devote the day to native peoples instead as we face our history of the slaughtering and pillaging that created this nation.

Apartheid and oppression hundreds of years ago is no different than apartheid and oppression today.

In the end, if we condone the oppression of minorities here at home with economic tyranny and racism and police violence and frankly, simply injustice, then we can very easily condone the oppression of groups of people like Palestinians by other nations like Israel. The two go hand in hand.

So, we are not free until we are ALL free.

Thanks for the song. Here's another one, "Who'll Stop the Rain," that I always liked when he performed it live:

''With their hearts they turned to each other's heart for refuge; In the troubled years that came before the deluge ...'' - is a nice line from that Jackson Browne song and that somehow felt apt on this thread & Dr. Jill Stein OP - where I'm appending this item for reflection ...

Fairness, justice and compassion are not hard to comprehend and apply for any one who can connect their head and heart together. On the subject matter in hand, may I append for your later attention and strongly recommend :

Further, this short article was titled "A message to Israel", in Tuesday's printed edition of The Guardian but the web-site has a somewhat more anodyne headline.

Finally re. the authors, Mary Robinson is a former president of Ireland and was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Martti Ahtisaari is a former President of Finland and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"Contrary to widespread perceptions of stalemate, the situation on the ground is far from static: more than 40% of the West Bank has already been taken for settlements, roads and military use, as have the majority of water and other natural resources. This is a moment for the EU to show greater leadership. As Israel's largest trading partner, the EU could start by differentiating between Israeli goods and those produced in illegal Israeli settlements." Seems like a good idea. Fairness and justice work both ways.

Indeed ''fairness and justice'', arguably Only Work when there is reciprocity. Thus I will append an old article, which tho' somewhat superseded by events, nevertheless gives a real perspective into current events and into the misconceptions behind present realities on the ground.

Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the equality of men & women?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the banning of amputations as punishment?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the banning of honor killing?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the banning of stoning as punishment?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the right of women to go to school?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the banning of killing people who burn booksl?
Does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights include the banning of fatwas?

I recommend this excellent and important link to all readers, to which alas - bensdad & his ranting sock puppet will be utterly impervious, lol. Thanks very much tho' bw, for posting this though for the rest of us.

From the link : "Prisoners of conscience – Israeli conscientious objectors : At least three Israeli conscientious objectors were imprisoned during 2011 for refusing military service because they opposed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories."

Hmm. Doesn't sound like a great plan. "Most of its structures are marked for demolition and will be wiped off the map according to the plan. Its residents will be forced to live in what are known as development towns for the Bedouins, like the city of Rabat, built by the state of Israel. There is language on the government website about the Prawer plan to concentrate the Bedouin population. The word concentration has dark resonances in history."

George Galloway has repeatedly spoken against war and injustice and given a rare voice in the halls of power, to The 99% both in The UK & globally & you're right - ''apartheid is apartheid'' period. Here is a recent notable example of GG from the debate in the UK parliament that probably prevented NATO air-strikes on Syria as FUKUS (France, UK&US !!!) were absolutely gung-ho and ready to go and become Al Qaida's airforce in the constructed, imposed and distinctly 'uncivil' war in Syria :

how many Arab countries have elected Jewish legislators? 0
how many Jewish countries have elected Arab legislators? 1
where did all of the Jews that lived in Arab countries go?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3A6_qSBBQ

You mean to say that there were people of Judaic culture, heritage and confession living in Arab countries ?! Really ?!! Who were they, how long had they been there, when and why did they go anywhere ?!!!

I realise that you have your hands full with Leo's query - but as a wee clue to help you - can I suggest researching Prof.Shlomo Sand & here's a pdf. of the entirety of his most famous, best selling book, in Israel and internationally :

I note that you both fail to address LeoYo's post and points or engage with the link to a pdf. of Shlomo Sand's famous book but you would rather have us think that people of Judaic heritage and culture were somehow evicted from the lands where they had been living in safety for many, many hundreds of years.

As though there was no ''Law Of Return'' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return ) and as though there was not a suddenly newly created state to fill and as though those people had not in turn been insentivised to now leave. Yes of course they were persecuted at the end and so felt they should leave for better prospects but the deeper point of their very existence right across the Arabic speaking world for many, many hundreds of years, seems to have escaped you totally.

You even claim on this and another thread that there was no such thing as The Palestinian People, in a sinister echo of that Zionist canard : ''A land without a people for a people without a land''. You bensdad, are an incorrigible ultra-nationalist whose first loyalty is not to The USA, or to The 99%, or to OWS - but to a race-based, ultra-nationalistic, ideological, nuclear-armed, military state in the Middle East.

Frankly nothing I (or the Rabbis in the video above or Shlomo Sand ; or Miko Peled ; or Gideon Levy ; or Norman Finklestein ; or Amira Hass ; or Max Blumenthal ; or Ilan Pappe ; or Noam Chomsky ; or Gilad Atzmon ; or Philip Weiss et al) can say will ever disabuse you of your very rigid preconceived dogma but please do try to keep replying to me here and elsewhere so that I can just keep laying down the relevant information and links for other interested readers.

To replace The Shoah with The Nakba was a crime or even a wrong doing which sadly you can not even acknowledge but I'll keep engaging with you. My next reply will perhaps be more about the 50,000 or so people of Judaic culture and heritage who still live in Iran, as we're not supposed to know of them either.

''Israel will unite'' with Palestinians when it is inevitably realised by all parties that Israel has now left no possibility of any 'Two State (Non)Solution' and the Palestinians then demand full and equal citizenship in the land of their and their ancestors' birth and the entire South Africa scenario then plays itself out.

You are as usual keen to push your simplistic Jews v. Muslims paradigm and refuse to acknowledge the 25% of Palestinians who were Christian in 1948 and remain so throughout the Global Palestinian Diaspora. An apartheid, race-based state can only go one way 'john' and if you live in NY/USA, how do you speak with such authority about all Israeli and Jewish people ? See penultimate parag. above and :

I don't count the Jewish people who left on their own upon invitation to disposess others. As Hanan Ashrawi has stated:

“If Israel is their homeland, then they are not ‘refugees’; they are emigrants who returned either voluntarily or due to a political decision.”

Iraqi-born Ran Cohen, a former member of the Knesset, said: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee". Yemeni-born Yisrael Yeshayahu, former Knesset speaker, Labor Party, stated: "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations". And Iraqi-born Shlomo Hillel, also a former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party, claimed: "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."

Historian Tom Segev stated: "Deciding to emigrate to Israel was often a very personal decision. It was based on the particular circumstances of the individual's life. They were not all poor, or 'dwellers in dark caves and smoking pits'. Nor were they always subject to persecution, repression or discrimination in their native lands. They emigrated for a variety of reasons, depending on the country, the time, the community, and the person."

Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish migration to Israel, concludes that, even though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying that "nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted". He restated that case in a review of Martin Gilbert's book, In Ishmael’s House.

Yehuda Shenhav has criticized the analogy between Jewish emigration from Arab countries and the Palestinian Arab exodus. He also says "The unfounded, immoral analogy between Palestinian refugees and Mizrahi immigrants needlessly embroils members of these two groups in a dispute, degrades the dignity of many Mizrahi Jews, and harms prospects for genuine Jewish-Arab reconciliation." He has stated that "the campaign's proponents hope their efforts will prevent conferral of what is called a "right of return" on Palestinians, and reduce the size of the compensation Israel is liable to be asked to pay in exchange for Palestinian property appropriated by the state guardian of "lost" assets".

Now it can't be both ways. Either these Jewish people are Semites who are refugees expelled by their fellow Semites from their Semitic and North African homelands and Palestine is NOT their homeland to which they have NO right to or some part of Palestine IS actually their homeland and they're NOT refugees for leaving lands upon having severe political differences arising from the political reaction to the political imposition of Israel. Take your pick. You can't be kicked out of your homeland only to flee to another land and then become a refugee in your homeland. That's meaningless double talk. Commit to an identification of who is actually leaving a homeland.

''is a devastating book about Israel – an anatomy of the extremist takeover of the nation. It is a country overrun by extremists, the Jewish right, which has hijacked constitution. I don’t know how many even alternative institutions are going to cover this book, and let this person stand up against the great wall of censorship that gets in the way, and undermines and threatens any voice, person, who dares to effectively systematically tell the truth about this endless illegal occupation of a people fighting for so many years to be free.'' from :

The Representatives in the House they can ignore-2 year terms mean they can be disposed of if they refuse to put Israel First.Senators-not so much.Paul Wellstone would never,ever have agreed to put Israel First.He could continue to get reelected without their money.There was no dirt to dig up on the guy.And he was a Jew.So they killed him and his whole family.Russ Feingold just gtf out rather than do their bidding.The only other choice would be to die for nothing,and be replaced by a Zionist Tool.I don't blame him one bit.There is nothing he could have done that would have changed anything.Elizabeth Warren will put Israel First,leave the Senate quietly,leave the Senate under a cloud, have a serious fatal or near fatal accident or be rolled up in a gun rampage.They are all controlled by bullets or blackmail and have been for many years.

They will win again. Once the Republicans have a few shit years under their belt, the Dem loyalists will come out from their caves and endorse them again, giving them yet another shot over the last 100 years to do something.

Of course, they will just get fucked over for a few years ago, and then the power will shift back to the Republicans.

And around and around we go, begging the same two companies to save us year after year after year after year....

Celebrated Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe whose landmark publication, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", documented the planned removal of 700,000 Palestinians from their lands in 1948, has written a new book "The Forgotten Palestinians".

In the book and at this September 16th community meeting at Sydney University, Pappe reveals the situation for the Palestinians who still live within Israel's borders.

This was the first event of Professor Pappe's 2012 Australian lecture tour. It was hosted by the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney with the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Leichhardt Friends of Hebron. The lecture is on matters which seldom receive any airplay in The USA.

From Wikipedia: “Pappé was born in Haifa to German-Jewish parents who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s. At the age of 18, he was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, serving in the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1978, and in 1984 obtained his PhD in history from the University of Oxford.”

For those with limited time, the most important part of this video kicks in at around the 18 minute mark. Thanks, Shadz for this great and informative post. Anyone sincerely interested in this matter should watch this video.

"I have no emotional attachment to the practices of an ancestral religion and even less to the small, militarist, culturally disappointing and politically aggressive nation-state which asks for my solidarity on racial ground."

Hobsbawm was a truly great historian.

And, did you hear the latest? "Swiss Report Supports Theory Arafat Was Poisoned" from the NY Times headline.

''Scientists find at least 18 times the normal levels of radioactive element in late Palestinian leader’s remains''. Even if the short Al-Jazeera You-Tube video doesn't work on that link, the text and article will still prove very useful.

George Orwell once asked "What breaks first-the Hammer or the Anvil?" This is a question Militaristic Zionist policymakers in Israel should ponder.In order to remind them of this,it is my idea that Activists and Artists who wish to support Palestine should manufacture hundreds of styrofoam or papier-mache Anvils and dump them in front of the Israeli Embassy from time to time.I also feel that the Palestinians should adopt the Anvil as their Icon,because it would be an understandable emblem of resistance within a very short time,with no slogan or caption of any kind needed.

''As always, the answer to every problem is a heavier hand. The prime minister has already ordered security forces to be bolstered, using the only language the people in his government know. And when the resistance, naturally, becomes more violent, they throw up their hands and say: “Look how they’re destroying the light rail system that we built for them.”

''Jerusalem could have been different. Had Israel exercised justice and equality there, it could have become a model city; the people who annexed it should have strived for that. In the worst days of the intifada, relatively little terror originated in the city, even though its residents could travel freely.

''The mass arrests in Jerusalem that aroused no interest in Israel, the settlers’ invasion of Arab neighborhoods with the support of the government and courts, the criminal neglect for which the city is responsible — all this will have a price.

''How long will they see their children afraid to leave their homes for fear of being attacked by hooligans in the street? How long will they see their children arrested for every flying stone? How long will they watch the neglect in their neighborhoods?

''How long will they consent to their tacit expulsion from the city? Between 1967 and 2013, Israel revoked the residency status of 14,309 Palestinians in Jerusalem, with strange claims that don’t apply to any of its Jewish residents. Isn’t that apartheid?'' .. & also see :

"Twelve years ago, Israeli bulldozers rolled into Jenin camp in the West Bank in the midst of the second intifada. Israel had just lost its largest number of soldiers in a single battle as the army struggled through a warren of narrow alleys. In scenes that shocked the world, Israel turned hundreds of homes to rubble.

''With residents living in tents, Israel insisted on the terms of Jenin camp’s rehabilitation. The alleys that assisted the Palestinian resistance in its ambushes had to go. In their place, streets were built wide enough for Israeli tanks to patrol.

''In short, both the Palestinians’ humanitarian needs and their right in international law to resist their oppressor were sacrificed to satisfy Israel’s desire to make the enforcement of its occupation more efficient.''

~

Your 'hammer & anvil' analogy, has real value & the hammer of Zionist Apartheid is flawed and cracked and weakens with every blow whilst the anvil abides. The deepest irony of Palestine - is that the Arabic speaking Palestinian peasantry who were 'ethnically cleansed' and dispersed in 1948 were & are some of the most likely living descendants of the many ancient peoples who have lived in what is now called Israel .. Canaanites; Philistines; Phoenicians; Samaritans; Hebrews / Israelites / Jews & many others.

In a dark irony, Zionism is a racially based ideology which emerged out of the various 'nationalisms' enabled by the dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires & that people of Judaic heritage were at the receiving end of the horrors of Germanic, Aryan Uber-Nationalism & the abused seem to have now gone on to become the abusers ?! Or is that too simplistic ?!!

In any case - the oppression and occupation just can't go on & the South African paradigm awaits.

Jews abandoned Militarism and Statism millennia ago for good reason.The people who decided to go back to them again are at best,Bad Jews and Posers using a Tragic History for Political Purposes at Worst-unless they were Actual Criminals all along.Something does not compute.Israel claims to be the Jewish State while their Policies are the most UnJewish Policies Imaginable.Iacta est alea.

"Why Is the Arab world so easily offended?" asks the headline atop an article by Fouad Ajami, which the Washington Post published online last Friday to give perspective to the recent anti-American violence in Muslim capitals.

While the Post described Ajami simply as a "senior fellow" at Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution, Wikipedia gives a more instructive perspective on his checkered career and dubious credibility.

An outspoken supporter of the war on Iraq, Ajami was still calling it a "noble effort" well after it went south. He is a friend and colleague of one of the war's intellectual authors, neocon Paul Wolfowitz, and also advised Condoleezza Rice. It was apparently Wolfowitz or Rice who fed Ajami's analyses to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who cited Ajami's views repeatedly in speeches.

The most telling example of this came in Cheney's VFW address on August 26, 2002, in which the Vice President laid down the terms of reference for the planned attack on Iraq. Attempting to assuage concerns about the upcoming invasion, Cheney cited Ajami's analysis: "As for the reaction of the Arab 'street,' the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are 'sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.'"

In his writings, Ajami did warn, in a condescending way, that one could expect some "road rage ... of a thwarted Arab world – the congenital condition of a culture yet to take full responsibility for its self-inflicted wounds." He then added:

"There is no need to pay excessive deference to the political pieties and givens of the region. Indeed, this is one of those settings where a reforming foreign power's simpler guidelines offer a better way than the region's age-old prohibitions and defects."

No One Better?

Ignoring the albatross of tarnished credentials hanging around Ajami's neck, the Post apparently saw him as just the right academician to put perspective on the violence of last week in Middle East capitals. As for his record of credibility: Well, who takes the trouble to go to Wikipedia for information on pundits? Nor were the Post's editors going to take any chances that its newspaper readers might miss the benefit of Ajami's wisdom. So the Post gave pride of place to the same article in Sunday's Outlook section, as well. What the Post and other mainstream media want us to believe comes through clearly in the title given to the article's jump portion, which dominates page 5: "Why a YouTube trailer ignited Muslim rage."

Setting off the article were large, scary photos: on page one, a photo of men brandishing steel pipes to hack into the windows of the U.S. embassy in Yemen; the page-5 photo showed a masked protester, as he "ran from a burning vehicle near the U.S. embassy in Cairo." So – to recapitulate – the Post's favored editorial narrative of the Mideast turmoil is that hypersensitive, anti-American Muslims are doing irrational stuff like killing U.S. diplomats and torching our installations. This violence was the result of Arabs all too ready to take offense at a video trailer disrespectful of the Prophet. Nonetheless, it seems to be true that the trailer did have some immediate impact and will have more. According to an eyewitness, the 30 local guards who were supposed to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi simply ran away as the violent crowd approached on Tuesday night.

Wissam Buhmeid, the commander of the Tripoli government-sanctioned Libya's Shield Brigade, effectively a police force for Benghazi, maintained that it was anger over the video trailer which made the guards abandon their post.

"There were definitely people from the security forces who let the attack happen because they were themselves offended by the film; they would absolutely put their loyalty to the Prophet over the consulate. The deaths are all nothing compared to insulting the Prophet."

Predictably, Islamophobes and Muslim haters with influence over Western media coverage are citing the violence as the kind of "irrational" over-reaction that "exposes" Islam's intolerance and incompatibility with democratic values and demonstrates that Islam is on a collision course with the West.

It is no surprise that Ajami gives no attention to the many additional factual reasons explaining popular outrage against the U.S. and its representatives – reasons that go far deeper than a video trailer, offensive though it was. Ajami steers clear of the dismal effects of various U.S. policies over the years on people across the Muslim world – in countries like Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Afghanistan. (The list stretches as far as distant Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state.)

Last week's violence not only reflects the deep anger at and distrust of the U.S. across the Islamic world, but also provides insight into the challenges posed by the power now enjoyed by the forces of extremism long held in check by the dictators toppled by last year's wave of revolutions.

Cui Bono?

Who are the main beneficiaries of misleading narratives like that of Ajami. He himself concedes, "It is never hard to assemble a crowd of young protesters in the teeming cities of the Muslim world. American embassies and consulates are magnets for the disgruntled."

So, does that mean the notorious video trailer is best regarded as a catalyst for the angry protests rather than the underlying cause? In other words, if the video served as the spark, who or what laid the kindling? Who profits from the narrative that neocons are trying so hard to embed in American minds?

Broad hints can be seen in the Washington Post's coverage over recent days – including a long piece by its Editorial Board, "Washington's role amid the Mideast struggle for power," published the same day Ajami's article appeared online.

What the two have in common is that the word "Israel" appears in neither piece. One wonders how and why the Post's editors could craft a long editorial on the "Mideast struggle for power" — and give editorial prominence to Ajami's article — without mentioning Israel. Presumably because the Post's readers aren't supposed to associate the fury on the Arab "street" with anger felt by the vast majority Arabs over what they see as U.S. favoritism toward Israel and neglect for the plight of the Palestinians. The Israeli elephant, with the antipathy and resentment its policies engender, simply cannot be allowed into the discussion.

In the circumstances of last week, Israel may be less a centerpiece than the ugly Islamophobia that has found a home in America. But these factors tend to build on and reinforce each other. And the indignities suffered at the hand of Israel certainly has resonance is the larger context of Muslims who feel their religion and culture are under attack in a variety of ways.

"Why Do They Hate Us?"

On Saturday, during a live interview on Al-Jazeera, I tried to inject some balance into the discussion. I noted that one key reason for the antipathy toward the U.S. among Muslims is the close identification of the U.S. with Israel and the widespread realization that support from Washington enables Israel's policies of oppression and warmongering against the Palestinians and its regional neighbors. [As an example of that Israeli brutality and American complicity, an op-ed in Monday's New York Times detailed how U.S. diplomats in 1982 acquiesced to Israeli actions in Lebanon that led to the massacre of defenseless Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.]

As to "why they hate us," I had time to recall three very telling things I had mentioned in an earlier article on this sensitive topic.

1 — From the 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004, page 147, regarding the motivation of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."

2 — The mainstream-media-neglected report from the Pentagon-appointed Defense Science Board, a report that took direct issue with the notion that they hate us for our freedom. Amazingly, in their Sept. 23, 2004, report to Rumsfeld, the DSB directly contradicted what Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush had been saying about "why they hate us." Here's part of what the DSB said:

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."

The New York Times ignored the Defense Science Board's startling explanation (as it has other references to the elephant plopped on the sofa). On Nov. 24, 2004, the erstwhile "newspaper of record" did publish a story on the board's report — but performed some highly interesting surgery.

Thom Shanker of the Times quoted the paragraph beginning with "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom'" (see above), but he or his editors deliberately cut out the following sentence about what Muslims do object to, i.e., U.S. "one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights" and support for tyrannical regimes. The Times then included the sentence immediately after the omitted one. In other words, it was not simply a matter of shortening the paragraph. Rather, the offending middle sentence was surgically removed.

Peace is probably antithetical to any Military-Industrial-Complex and War Machine, where The Military Expenditure is actually used to surreptitiously support huge areas of a de facto War Economy ~*~ In Israel/Palestine, for Peace to break out there must be opportunity to give voice to all who believe in it :

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon died Saturday at the age of 85 after eight years in a coma. Sharon was one of the most dominant political figures in Israel’s history, involved in each of Israel’s major wars dating back to its founding in 1948. Among Palestinians, Sharon was one of the most reviled political figures in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is seen as father of the settlement movement and an architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that killed a reported 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese. We discuss Sharon’s legacy with three guests: Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University; and Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading scholars on the Israeli-Arab conflict. "There is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a kind of vow of silence, because there is nothing good to say," Chomsky says. "He was a brutal killer; he had one fixed idea in mind which drove him all his life: a greater Israel, as powerful as possible, as few Palestinians as possible. ... He doubtless showed courage and commitment to pursuing this ideal, which is an ugly and horrific one."

TRANSCRIPT:

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin in Israel, where a state funeral was held today in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, for former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He died Saturday after eight years in a coma. He was 85 years old. He’ll be buried in a state funeral today at his home in southern Israel.

The U.S. was among eight countries—18 countries to send delegations to attend Sharon’s funeral, along with Middle East international envoy Tony Blair and the Russian and German foreign ministers. At a state memorial in Jerusalem, Vice President Joe Biden remembered Sharon as a controversial, but bold military leader and statesman.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: When he told 10,000 Israelis to leave their homes in Gaza in order, from his perspective, to strengthen Israel, I can’t think of a much more controversial—as a student of the Jewish state, I can’t think of a much more difficult and controversial decision been made. But he believed it, and he did it. The security of his people was always Arik’s unwavering mission, a non-breakable commitment to the future of Jews, whether 30 years or 300 years from now.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Vice President Joe Biden speaking during Ariel Sharon’s memorial. Thousands of Israelis came to pay their respects as his coffin lay in state outside the parliament building in Jerusalem. Ministers held a minute’s silence at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting to remember their former leader. This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] In all of his latest roles as minister of defense, as minister of housing, minister of infrastructures, minister of foreign affairs, Arik has contributed to the state of Israel and, as much as he could, to the security of Israel, and that’s what he did as Israel’s prime minister. I believe he represents a generation of Jewish leaders who rose from our people with the resumption of our independence. He was tied to the land. He knew the need to protect the land, and he understood that, above all that, our independence is our ability to protect ourselves by ourselves. I believe he will be remembered as one of the prominent leaders and one of the bravest commanders in the heart of Israel forever.

AMY GOODMAN: Ariel Sharon has been one of the most dominant political figures in Israel’s history, involved in each of Israel’s major wars dating back to its founding in 1948. As prime minister, he oversaw Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The Gaza withdrawal caused a serious rift in Sharon’s Likud Party, which led to his departure. He formed a new party, Kadima, which maintained the Gaza disengagement while expanding Israeli control over the major settlement blocks in the occupied West Bank.

Among Palestinians, Sharon was one of the most reviled political figures in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He’s seen as father of the settlement movement, an architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed a reported 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese. An Israeli commission of inquiry found Sharon had indirect responsibility for the massacre of over a thousand Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon in 1982.

To talk about Ariel Sharon’s life and legacy, we’re joined now by three guests. In New York, we’re joined by Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East and, just reissued, Under Siege: PLO Decisionmaking During the 1982 War.

Joining us from his home in Massachusetts by phone, Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than 50 years. His 1983 book, The Fateful Triangle, is known as one of the definitive works on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

And we are also joined from Oxford by Avi Shlaim, an Emeritus Professor of International Studies at Oxford University, the author of Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. He served in the Israeli army in the mid-'60s and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s go first to the Israeli historian, Avi Shlaim. Your response to the death of Ariel Sharon, what you feel he should be remembered for?

AVI SHLAIM: Ariel Sharon is one of the most iconic and controversial figures in Israel’s history. He had deep—he was a deeply flawed character, renowned for his brutality, mendacity and corruption. Despite these character flaws, he is a major figure in shaping Israel’s modern history.

He was one of the five most influential figures who left a deep mark on modern Israel. The first was David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the state, who in 1949 concluded the armistice agreements with the neighboring Arab states, the only internationally recognized borders that Israel has ever had. Second was Levi Eshkol, who, in the aftermath of the June 1967 War, presided over the transformation of Israel from a plucky little democracy into a brutal colonial power. The third was the Likud leader, Menachem Begin, who signed the first peace treaty with an Arab country. He signed the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. The fourth was Yitzhak Rabin, the only Israeli prime minister who went forward on the political front towards the Palestinians, and he did this by signing the Oslo Accord in 1939 and clinching the historic compromise between the two nations with the iconic handshake with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn.

And finally, there is Ariel Sharon, who always rejected the Oslo peace process, who as prime minister tried to sweep away the remnants of Oslo and forge a new strategy of unilateralism, of giving up on the Palestinians and redrawing unilaterally the borders of greater Israel. So, his legacy can be summed up in one word—unilateralism—acting in defiance of U.N. resolutions, international law and international public opinion. The real question is: How was Ariel Sharon, and how is Israel today under his successors, able to defy the entire international community? And the answer to that is that Israel could not have done it on its own, but it has a little friend, and the friend is the United States of America. But that is a different story.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then get response from Professor Rashid Khalidi and Professor Noam Chomsky, as well as continue our discussion with Israeli historian Avi Shlaim. This is Democracy Now! We’re talking about the death of Ariel Sharon. Stay with us.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about the death of the former prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who died Saturday after eight years in a coma. He was 85 years old. We are joined by Professor Noam Chomsky in Massachusetts, by Avi Shlaim, the Israeli historian at Oxford University in Britain, and we’re joined here in New York by Rashid Khalidi. Among his books are Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. He’s the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. You’re also Palestinian. Your response to the death of Ariel Sharon?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, for me, the most important emotion is a sense of, finally, the man who carried out a war in which 20,000 people were killed, the Lebanon War of 1982, who besieged Beirut, who destroyed building after building, killing scores of civilians in a search to destroy the PLO leadership, has finally left the world. I was in Beirut that summer of 1982. And I—to me, it’s horrific to watch the hagiographies that are being produced by people like Vice President Biden, by The New York Times, by much of the media, about a man who really should have ended his days at The Hague before the International Criminal Court. He was a man who, from the very beginning of his career, started out killing people. As the commander of Unit 101, he was the man who ordered the Qibya massacre.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain. What is Unit 101?

RASHID KHALIDI: Unit 101 was a military unit of the Israeli army formed at the orders of the Israeli leadership of the time to carry out savage reprisal raids. But we’re talking about dozens of victims. In retaliation for, in this case, two or three people being killed, 69 people had their homes blown up over their heads.

AMY GOODMAN: When was this?

RASHID KHALIDI: This was 1953 in a small village in the—what is today the West Bank. This was the first condemnation of Israel by a Security Council resolution. This was something that the United States at the time was willing to say was a horrible, horrible crime. And this is a man who, since then, really, has only acted on the basis of a belief that force is the only thing the Arabs understand. The idea that he is now considered by some to be a peacemaker is grotesque, frankly.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, you wrote The Fateful Triangle in response to what happened in Lebanon. It changed the discourse for many in this country. First, explain your reaction to the death of Ariel Sharon and what we should understand about him.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, you know, there is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a kind of vow of silence because there’s nothing else to say—there’s nothing good to say. What both Rashid and Avi Shlaim have said is exactly accurate. He was a brutal killer. He had one fixed idea in mind, which drove him all his life: a greater Israel, as powerful as possible, as few Palestinians as possible—they should somehow disappear—and an Israel which could be powerful enough to dominate the region. The Lebanon War then, which was his worst crime, also had a goal of imposing a client state in Lebanon, a Maronite client state. And these were the driving forces of his life.

The idea that the Gaza evacuation was a controversial step for peace is almost farcical. By 2005, Gaza had been devastated, and he played a large role in that. The Israeli hawks could understand easily that it made no sense to keep a few thousand Israeli settlers in Gaza using a very large percentage of its land and scarce water with a huge IDF, Israeli army, contingent to protect them. What made more sense was to take them out and place them in the West Bank or the Golan Heights—illegal. It could have been done very simply. They could have—the Israeli army could have announced that on August 1st they’re leaving Gaza, in which case the settlers would have piled into the trucks that were provided to them, which would take them from their subsidized homes in Gaza to illegal subsidized homes in other territories that Israel intended to keep, and that would have been the end of it. But instead, a—what Israeli sociologists call, Baruch Kimmerling called an "absurd theater" was constructed to try to demonstrate to the world that there cannot be any further evacuations.

The farce was a successful public relations effort. Joseph Biden’s comments illustrate that. It was particularly farcical when you recognize that it was a virtual replay of what happened in 1982 when Israel was compelled to withdraw from the Egyptian Sinai and carried out an operation that the Israeli press ridiculed as Operation National Trauma 1982: We have to show the world how much we’re suffering by carrying out an action that will benefit our power and our security. And that was the peacemaking effort.

But his career is one of unremitting brutality, dedication to the fixed idea of his life. He doubtless showed courage and commitment to pursuing this ideal, which is an ugly and horrific one.

AMY GOODMAN: Avi Shlaim, go back to 1982 and what happened in Lebanon. First, where were you?

AVI SHLAIM: In 1982, Ariel Sharon was defense minister in Menachem Begin’s government, and he was the architect of the invasion of Lebanon. And it was a war of deception because Sharon tricked his Cabinet colleagues into launching this operation by pretending the aims were very limited, whereas in fact he had a big plan to completely change the bare geopolitics of the region, to create a new order in Lebanon but by helping Israel’s Maronite Christian allies to come to power in Lebanon and then sign a peace treaty with Israel, then to expel the Syrian forces from Lebanon and to replace Syrian with Israeli hegemony in the Levant.

This war of deception ended in tears. It didn’t achieve any of its grandiose geopolitical objectives, and it ended also with the massacre in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. There was an Israeli—there was an Israeli commission of inquiry which found Defense Minister Sharon as responsible for failing to prevent the massacre of the Palestinian refugees by Israel’s Christian allies, and Sharon was forced to step down—he was fired as minister of defense. And no one could have guessed at that time how a man who was found unfit to serve as minister of defense would bounce back as Israel’s prime minister.

But this is all of a piece in Sharon’s career as a soldier and as a politician, because, as Professor Khalidi pointed out, Sharon committed his first war crime as a young major in 1953 when he destroyed many houses in the Jordanian village of Qibya, and he was responsible for the massacre of 69 civilians. So that was his first war crime, but it was not to be his last. And the consistent thread in his career as a soldier and as a politician was to use brute force, not just against the regular armies of the Arab states, but also against Palestinian civilians. And the other consistent thread is to shun diplomacy and to rely on brute force to impose Israeli hegemony on the entire region. President George W. Bush famously called Sharon a man of peace. Sharon was nothing of the sort. He was a man of war through and through, and he called his autobiography Warrior, not Diplomat. His approach to diplomacy reversed Clausewitz’s dictum; for Sharon, diplomacy was the pursuit of war by other means. For the last 40 years, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been my main research interest, and I can honestly say that I have never come across a single scintilla of evidence to support the notion of Sharon as a man of peace.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to 1982, the commission report you referred to, Avi Shlaim, and ask Noam Chomsky about the Kahan Commission and what it is they found, and how it is that Ariel Sharon actually survived politically beyond that.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the Kahan Commission did condemn Sharon for what they called "indirect responsibility" for Sabra-Shatila massacre. The Kahan Commission, I think, was really a whitewash. It tried to give as soft as possible an interpretation of what was in fact a horrifying massacre, actually one that should resonate with people who are familiar with Jewish history. It was almost a replica of the Kishinev massacre in pre-First World War Russia, one of the worst atrocities in Israeli memory, led to a famous nationalist poem by the main Israeli poet, Chaim Nahman Bialik, "City of Killing." The tsar’s army had surrounded this town and allowed the people within it to rampage, killing Jews for three days. They killed 45 people. That was—that’s pretty much what happened in Sabra-Shatila: Israeli army surrounded it, sent in the Phalangist forces, who were obviously bent on murder.

AMY GOODMAN: These were the Lebanese Christian forces.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Lebanese Christian terrorist force, allied with Israel. The soldiers watched as they illuminated it. They helped them enter. They watched for several days while they murdered, not 45 people, but somewhere—Israel claims 800, other analyses go up to several thousand. That’s the Sabra-Shatila massacre. The idea that Sharon had indirect—the tsar, incidentally, was bitterly condemned internationally for direct responsibility. That’s, in fact, one of the events that set off the huge flow of refugees from Eastern Europe, including my father, among others. But—so this was a kind of a replica, except far more brutal and vicious. And Sharon escaped more than a mild censure. It’s true that he was removed as defense minister, but it wasn’t long before he came back. And that’s one of a number of extremely shocking incidents in his career.

Official Washington’s neocons are still trying to derail a negotiated settlement with Iran over its nuclear program by imposing new sanctions and thus putting the U.S. on a course for war – as favored by Israel’s Likud. But this reality is hiding behind sophistry, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

Here’s a New Year’s resolution that participants in policy debate in Washington, and especially those in Congress, should make: be honest about your position on Iran. Say what you really want, and make your best arguments on behalf of what you really want, and don’t pretend to be working in favor of what you really are working against.

The main vehicle for debate about Iran once Congress reconvenes is a bill introduced by Senators Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, and Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, that would threaten still more sanctions on Iran and purchasers of its oil, would impose unrealistic conditions to be met to avoid actually imposing the sanctions, and would explicitly give a green light to Israel to launch a war against Iran and to drag the United States into that war.

As Colin Kahl has explained in detail, passage of this legislation would be very damaging to the process of negotiating a final agreement with Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful. The promoters of the legislation contend that its effect would be just the opposite, and would increase U.S. bargaining power and make it more likely Iran would make concessions we want.

It is possible that some members of Congress who might be inclined to vote for this bill, and even some who have signed on as co-sponsors, actually believe that contention. They keep hearing, after all, the trope about how “sanctions brought Iran to the table” and that if some sanctions are a good thing than even more sanctions are an even better thing.

But anyone who has thought seriously for more than a minute about this subject — as the chief promoters of the legislation surely have — realizes how fallacious that idea is. Whatever role sanctions may have had in getting Iran to the table, it is the prospect of getting sanctions removed, not having them forever increase, that will induce Iran, now that it is at the table, to complete an agreement placing severe restrictions on its nuclear program.

It goes against all logic and psychology to think that right after Iran has made most of the concessions necessary to conclude the preliminary Joint Plan of Action, “rewarding” it with more pressure and more punishment would put Iranians in the mood to make still more concessions.

The people doing the negotiating for the United States oppose the legislation because of the damage it would do to the negotiations. Their view is highly significant, no matter how much one might agree or disagree with whatever specific terms the administration is trying to get. If the legislation really would strengthen the U.S. negotiating position, any U.S. negotiator would welcome it.

And if that weren’t enough, counterparts to Kirk and Menendez in the Iranian legislature are providing further evidence of the destructive effect of what is transpiring on Capitol Hill, with the Iranian legislators’ bill calling for Iran to start enriching uranium to a level well beyond what it has ever done before if the United States imposes any new sanctions.

This is direct confirmation of how threats and hardline obstinacy, especially at this juncture, beget threats and hardline obstinacy from the other side. The Iranian bill also provides a real-life opportunity for some role reversal. Does this threat emanating from the Majlis make U.S. policy-makers more inclined to take a softer line and make more concessions? Of course not.

Kirk and Menendez are not dummies. They surely realize all this. Their legislation serves the purpose of those who want the negotiations with Iran to fail, not to succeed. Chief among those with this purpose is, of course, the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made it abundantly clear that he opposes any agreement of any sort with Iran and will continue to do whatever he can to portray Iran as Satan incarnate and to keep it permanently ostracized.

The principal organization in Washington that serves the policy of Netanyahu’s government — i.e., AIPAC — also has its own reason to hammer away forever at the Iranian bogeyman: it’s “good for business,” as a former senior AIPAC executive explained. It is no accident that Mark Kirk is easily the biggest congressional recipient of AIPAC funds, and Robert Menendez is also among the top half dozen recipients.

Honesty would mean dispensing with the phony issue of whether more sanctions now would help negotiate a better agreement — since they clearly would not — and instead posing the real issue: whether it is in the interests of the United States for the negotiations with Iran to succeed or to fail. That issue can be debated according to several criteria.

One concerns the objective of preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon: is that objective more obtainable through a negotiated agreement that imposes major new restrictions and intensified international monitoring on Iran’s nuclear program, or through continued confrontation that offers neither of those things?

A second set of criteria concerns which path is more likely to avoid the danger of a new war — supplemented by discussion of the impact of a new war on U.S. interests. Another criterion concerns whether broader U.S. policy in the Middle East is better served by the United States having the flexibility to conduct its own diplomacy with anyone in the region on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue basis, or by being locked into hostility insisted on by third parties.

All of this should be debated from the standpoint of U.S. interests. Those with a special concern for Israel can also ask parallel questions, such as whether Israeli interests are better served by an unending relationship of hostility with another major state in the region, with threats and hatred being perpetually flung by each side at the other, or by following a different path.

Let such an honest debate begin. But an honest debate will barely get off the ground unless we discard the nonsense about how something like the Kirk-Menendez bill supposedly aids negotiations.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A trio of Israeli stage actors is refusing to perform in an acclaimed play before a theater in a West Bank Jewish settlement, part of a burgeoning domestic movement against the government's settlement policies.

The protest mirrors a global movement against the settlements that has put Israel's government in an increasingly difficult situation as the current round of peace talks with the Palestinians continues.
The international community, including the U.S., has long considered Israeli construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank, captured territory claimed by the Palestinians, as an obstacle to peace.
This sentiment, long held also by Israel's dovish left, now appears to be gaining steam at home following a string of harsh global condemnations of settlement construction in recent months. Some on Israel's left fear the scale of the settlements soon will pass the tipping point where a pullout may become too difficult, and Israel will be forced to essentially absorb the West Bank and its millions of Palestinians.

In a joint statement, the Cameri and Beit Lessin theaters said that three cast members in their production of "Best Friends" had asked to be excused from performing at the cultural center in Ariel, a settlement built deep inside the West Bank. It said they were granted exemptions and will be replaced by alternates, allowing the show to go on.

One of the actresses, Sarit Vino-Elad, said she could not bring herself to step foot in a theater built on occupied land and which posed an obstacle to peace with Palestinians.

"This is not a boycott. It's my own little protest against a government policy that continues to build settlements," she told The Associated Press. "They are trying to make Ariel part of the consensus, but as far as I am concerned it is not legitimate. You want me to perform there? Solve the problem."

Israel is particularly sensitive to such sentiments as it is constantly battling against international efforts to impose economic, cultural and academic boycotts upon it over the settlements. Defenders of Israel say it is a victim of orchestrated campaigns to delegitimize it and hold it to a double standard over its policies.

But such arguments seem to be facing an uphill struggle. Last week, the American Studies Association, a 3,800-member group of American scholars, endorsed a boycott of Israeli universities.
Previously, the Dutch water company Vitens, the largest supplier of drinking water in the Netherlands, decided to cut ties with Israel's national water carrier over its operations in West Bank settlements. The European Union recently forced Israel to make guarantees that special European research funds would not be spent in the settlements. The EU is also considering measures to clearly label products made in the settlements, a move that could harm sales.
Lately, Israeli settlements are also coming under increasing scrutiny at home.

Israelis who once considered the West Bank inseparable from the rest of the country, or at least shrugged off the settlements as insignificant, have begun to protest the large government budgets promoting West Bank construction instead of solving a dire housing crisis plaguing the rest of the country. Others refuse to purchase settlement goods or perform reserve military guard duty in the West Bank.

For years, the Palestinians refused to negotiate with Israel while settlement construction continued, saying it was a sign of bad faith. Under heavy U.S. pressure, the Palestinians reluctantly resumed negotiations last summer, under U.S. mediation, with an April target date for agreement.

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, all captured by Israel in 1967, for their state. Israel pulled troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005 and it is now ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas. East Jerusalem, with its sites holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, has been annexed by Israel. The West Bank, despite the fact that Israel builds towns there, has not.
More than 550,000 Israelis now live in areas captured in 1967, amid roughly 2.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians complain that the growing settler population makes it ever more difficult to partition the land.

The settlement of Ariel is a particular stumbling block. An enclave of nearly 20,000 people is one of the largest settlements, and its defenders say most Israelis want the settlement to be annexed to Israel in any future peace deal. But it is located well inside the West Bank, meaning no minor border adjustment as part of a peace deal could leave it on the Israeli side. Hawkish Cabinet ministers angrily have denounced the protesters and threatened to strip their government subsidies.

Vino-Elad said her colleagues have preferred to stay quiet with their stance for fear of political backlash — but she could not. "We don't want to create world wars here, we want to make theater," she said.

The Cameri theater said it was committed to staging the show in Ariel but that it would respect the political positions of its artists.

"The theater does not force its actors to perform in Ariel. Those who are not interested are replaced by their colleagues," it said in the statement. "The Cameri theater chose to allow its actors to exercise their freedom of expression and follow their conscience."

Culture Minister Limor Livnat criticized those artists that "boycott Israeli citizens because of where they live."

Ariel Turjeman, the director of the Ariel theater, played down the protest, saying the actors who refused to perform in the West Bank were a tiny number compared to the thousands who did. He said the theater purchased a play, not an actor, and that the move is little more than a publicity stunt.

"Those who don't want to come don't have to," he said. "If Ariel makes them uncomfortable, they can stay home. And to be honest, we don't want those who don't want to come here."

People turned their heads to segregation in the U.S. and South Africa for decades, and during the Holocaust and now do so with regard to the Palestinians. It's nothing new really, just plain ignorance and selfishness, but the tide will turn, it always does eventually.

His 1989 book ''A Secret Country'' (a follow on from his 1985 doc. about 'First Australians') was recently gifted to me by my better half ; I went to the global premier with his 'Q&A' afterwards, of his ''Cambodia, Year Ten'' doc; I bumped into him on a London street as I was going for an interview for a job in TV post-production (& got the job) and have been watching his documentaries since I was a child. On Thursday, 19th Dec. I watched ''Utopia''[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht8_5UlcgSQ ], about the very subject matter of my link to bw, above. I really like his work and the neologism to which you refer was coined by an arch British Conservative who didn't like Pilger's journalism. Here is another example of JP's work :

As you can see 'B' ... I'm a BIG fan but we can agree to disagree mate and a lot of Aussies seem to not find him 'easy viewing' & so best wishes of the season (your high summer) to you & yours & onyer m8 !!

It's wrong of me to critique a film, or the contents thereof, without first sampling it at least.

Having worked myself on several Indigenous communities over the years, I agree that there are problems, but focussing upon the very worst of the worst, which the recent govt "intervention" program, and presumably John's film have done, I can say one thing for certain; generalisations are reliably wrong.

There are many success stories in the greater indigenous population, and unfortunately these get little airtime, simply because there's no "value" to sensationalist media hawkers to focus upon.

Inner-city enclaves, like Sydney's Redfern population, have created and nurtured an "us" and "them" situation that is simply not mirrored in "real" life out there in the actual indigenous Australia.

Which raises another point; there actually is no cohesive Aboriginal Nation. It's a myth created by those who have made a life out of playing the bleeding heart. Our friend John would be well aware of this myth, and he is rather clever at promoting, and profitting from it.

Hundreds of individual tribes make up our Aboriginal Australia. I can show you the map, if you are interested. Some of these tribes have a history of amicable association, but many of them have been at war for so long, they don't remember what started it.

The govt's intervention (read child safety) program deepened this tribal divide, simply because everyone got tarred with the same brush, rather than being looked upon as the individuals that they are.

Season's greetings to you and yours, Shadz. Hope you have a happy and safe Christmas. :-)

I am not qualified to disagree with you but I've a huge problem with ''The govt's intervention (read child safety)'' - although I may have misunderstood what you are saying. Of course 'First Aussies' (like 'First Americans') were not a homogenous whole ... it's a massive place & they had a myriad languages and rich cultures but I do think we can safely say that they & their cultures have now been decimated in the last 250 years and that how they were / are treated is really VERY under-reported. I have been following John Pilger's work for a long time and he has been pretty consistent & ''Utopia'' is out in Aus in January, I believe.Have a bonzer Chrimbo too 'B' & fyi : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36877.htm

The intervention was purportedly all about removal of at-risk children from sexual or other forms of abuse. Children, and even babies, were presenting at town clinics with STDs, and children themselves were engaging in sexual activity with other children. These are the facts that were used to initiate what is now being called "the second stolen generation".

Truth is, we are all subject to the same legislation, and it is actually a crime for health professionals and education employees, to NOT report suspected child abuse. But at the time of introduction of the "intervention", the federal govt was fast losing political pace, and needed to be seen to do "something" about the problems, because of an expose by popular current affairs program, Four Corners. It's not like the govt would not have been aware of an imminent problem on some communities, unless they were wilfully ignoring their own departments, but they were cashing in on a sensationalist issue that had grabbed the unaware city dweller's sympathies.

Having skimmed your link, Shadz, John made sweeping generalisations about a lot of the issues I broached in my previous comment. Communities that host any kind of mining, receive "royalties" that are paid quarterly to each man, woman, and child. Having witnessed the phenomenon of these "paydays" in a few communities in the East Arnhem region, there seems to be a race to be the first to spend the cash, and there is a constant stream of taxis running back and forth between the community, and the nearest town, where the bulk of this easy money (seven grand each) gets spent on vehicles, drugs, alcohol, pornography, and electrical equipment.

The pornography has been blamed by many elders for the chronic sexual misconduct. Many remote communities were the first to receive hi-speed satellite broadband, so again, easy access to pornography has created a mindset that all forms of sexuality, even bestiality, are somehow "normal".

On the topic of apartheid, I see it as actually being reverse apartheid, wherein people who wish to remain on their tribal lands, are supported in that aim. Communities have a dole office, school, clinic, shop, sporting facilities, internet access, and free dental. With no actual job prospects, a program called CDEP or Community Development Employment Program was initiated, which is akin to working for the dole. Course instructors ( I was one of these) are sent to remote communities to train/assess people, to upskill them for admin or construction roles. It's not a perfect system, but when people don't want to integrate into the wider society, what else could be offered?

As for self-determination, Mr. Pilger neglected to mention that ATSIC (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Indigenous Council) was in place for about a decade, but the outcome was one of most corrupted groups in the history of politics in the nation. To put it bluntly, it was such a sham, that the people themselves milked, with full knowledge that heads would roll. Electioneering meant delivering pallets of beer, and buying favourites a new SUV or Troop carrier. Votes were often burned, immediately after the count.

John also rubbishes Twiggy Forest, who has instigated many successful pilot programs in creating training and employment for indigenous people. It's up to the people whether they take advantage of what is on offer, and many do. A visit to the Pilbara region, and Tom Price township in particular, shows the success story of Twiggy's efforts.

But focussing upon these positives does not support John's raison d'etre. In fact, John doesn't ever mention the Kimberley region, probably because of the many success stories up that way. I lived there for two years. Most of our "clientelle" were indigenous tradespeople, building new housing for the local indigenous population.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, things aren't always what they seem to be.

But it's a myth that indigenous people are treated worse than other Australians. If anything, they are granted more services, at no cost, and I don't personally believe that it is a good thing at all.

A cargo cult mentality has resulted, and certain elders, like Frank Dodson, have addressed this issue, and attempted to shame his fellow countrymen into having some pride about them.

But now I'm generalising, because many of my trainees and others I've come into contact with through my travels, are making a go of their lives, and are sad for those who try to drag them down to their level.

Granted, there's varying levels of racism within this nation, as undoubtedly there are in many other Antipodean enclaves, but to say that our indigenous people are being neglected, is to promote a lie.

I have to admit that I am replying to you without having read your reply because I have to be elsewhere right now BUT I promise to read it and revert to you as best I can later but please can I humbly request that you watch ''Utopia'' in Aus next month :

There can be no questioning your personal experience or knowledge and thanx much for your reply and comment. I think that there are reasons why people like John Pilger are so maligned and those revolve around the fact they can make people think deep and hard things and try to face hard facts sometimes.

For example, a view of the way Native Americans are treated is this : ''Yes, we wronged you in the past. We made up for it by giving you land and education and whatever. You don't make good use of what we gave you. So fuck off. We hate your guts now because you make us feel bad. Forget about the culture that was lost and the languages and the spirituality torn from you. Or worse - we the colonising powers that be, are just so fucking greedy and selfish that we really do not care, so just stay out of our fucking hair. You native people are losers ... just like those damn Palestinians, for not taking the scraps and for not forming a modern nation and being grateful for your allocated lot in life.''

Is it ''a myth that indigenous people are treated worse than other Australians'' ? And is it a lie ...''to say that (y)our indigenous people are being neglected'' ? The people themselves may feel like they belong to the land where they've been for ~40-50k years. Average male life expectancy for 'First Australians' is 45. Their levels of incarceration in Western Australia is beyond belief & only The Prison Industry is profiting there. Things are far from peachy elsewhere too. Finally, all chronologically written by you know who :

No offence meant 'B'. You know me well enough to not be too surprised at my response and I will leave you, again sincerely wishing you and yours all the very best for Chrimbo, Yule and the New Year, with :

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget." (Arundhati Roy)

shadz66 loves crackpot conspiracy theorists like John Pilger. You won't change his mind. He likes narratives built on fantasy. Personally, I think conspiracy theorists are the most dangerous people right now. I fear them more than the 1%. They confuse people and keep the masses in a blur between reality and fiction. So many people run after ghosts when we should be solving the very real problems in our real world. We don't have time for fantasy at this juncture in human history.

I mean, shadz66 is a fan of Alex Jones and David Icke. They are the brightest colours in his thinking patterns.

''Ambassador Indyk is problematic as a mediator for the Israel-Palestine talks not only because of his clearly established pro-Israel bias, but also because he has already failed at similar peace negotiations during the Clinton administration.

''Indyk’s ties to Israel run deep. He explains in his book, "I was first drawn to the Middle East through my Jewish identity and connection to Israel.” Originally an Australian citizen, Indyk studied in Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and volunteered in Israel’s war efforts. In a 2009 speech, Indyk explains that during this time, he was so convinced of the United States’ essential role in bringing peace to Israel that he chose to “make aliyah” to Washington and become a United States citizen (the term “aliyah” usually refers to diaspora Jews immigrating to Israel). He later became the deputy research director of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and co-founded the AIPAC-linked Washington Institute for Near East Policy “with support from the pro-Israel community," according to his own book.

''Indyk was heavily involved in Clinton administration's policy towards the Middle East, rising to become the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from April 1995 to September 1997 and also from January 2000 to July 2001. He was a key player in the failed negotiations at Camp David in 2000.

''Indyk’s prominent role in the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful Israel-Palestine policy is even more troubling than his demonstrated pro-Israel bias. He is an old-timer, a member of a diplomatic generation that has already been given the opportunity to advance the Middle East peace process and has failed.''

Israel's decision to wait until Secretary of State John Kerry left the region before announcing it will pursue settlement expansion in the West Bank grabbed the headlines. It's the existence of the settlements, not the timing of the announcement, which should concern the media.

The Israeli government, in its boundless benevolence, has decided to wait until Secretary of State John Kerry leaves the region before officially announcing plans to pursue more illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank. "We will respect John Kerry and not act to spite him," an anonymous Israeli official told The New York Times last week. The precise timing of Israel's announcements of imperialist intent has become its own little phenomenon in recent years; the Obama administration reportedly was furious when, in 2010, Israel announced new building plans while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting the country. Media outlets such as the Times report breathlessly on this diplomatic drama; the substance of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is now almost secondary to the crucial point of whether it is announced on Day X or Day Y and, accordingly, whether or not any high-ranking American officials' feelings are hurt.

It would be difficult to identify another matter that more clearly illustrates the news media's essential superficiality and its subtle allegiance to a framework in which the concerns of the US and Israeli governments distinctly outweigh those of the Palestinians. In a serious media culture, coverage of the "timing" of these announcements and the delicate sensibilities of US officials would be limited to a sentence or two in broader news reports. This recent phony gesture of goodwill by the Netanyahu government, though, was apparently deserving of a full article, landing on Page A6 of the January 2, 2014, edition of The New York Times.

Consider the title of a July 2012 Times editorial on Israeli settlements and how they tangibly harm the prospects for peace: "Wrong Time for New Settlements" - which directly implies that there is a "right" time for new settlements, that some times are better than others. This kind of twisted analysis and fraudulent dissent evokes memories of "opposition" to the criminally insane American invasion of Iraq, which was based not on principle but, rather, on the grounds that it was an unfortunate geopolitical "mistake" and "poor strategy" given the demands of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. At issue here is a policy of relentless Jewish expansion into Palestinian land, which most of the world considers illegal and which continues to stand as the central obstacle to any realistic drive for peace. Everything else is noise.

Israel's brutal occupation of the West Bank soon will reach its 50th year. By now, even casual followers of international affairs understand the stakes involved in this conflict, its incalculable human toll and how it infuses Middle Eastern politics with bottomless hatred and division. This wholly bizarre fascination with the timing of Israel's settlement announcements and the attendant, ultimately meaningless vicissitudes in US-Israeli power dynamics reduces the most consequential conflict in the world to a juicy diplomatic gossip story between the very powerful leaders of two very powerful states.

Israeli officials, of course, are primarily concerned not with how settlement expansion uproots Palestinian lives or intensifies the conflict but rather with the possibility that it might anger the bosses in Washington. In a comical bit of "dissent" after Israel published bids for another round of housing units last summer, Netanyahu ally Yahir Lipid expressed concern - "rightly" according to the Times - that the move "needlessly challenged the Americans." As always, it's all about the Americans. Pursue policies that destroy the lives of the most vulnerable stateless population on Earth, and worry only about how it affects the most powerful government in the history of the world, which also happens to be an unconditional ally. This is the height of derangement.

As Noam Chomsky has said, to even grant that "expansion" of settlements is the core issue is to give the game away, because the heart of the matter is the existence of the settlements. In other words, the framework for how this is discussed in the media continues to shift in ways that benefit Israel. So, first, instead of arguing the existence of the settlements, the debate becomes about their expansion only. Now, instead of expansion, the story is about which precise day Israel will announce its plans for expansion, as if this has any serious relevance to anyone (the aforementioned anonymous Israeli official told the Times, quite rightly, that "a day here or there makes no difference"). In a few years, perhaps, the question will be about whether or not Israel should bulldoze Palestinian homes at literally the exact date and time that the latest round of so-called "peace talks" are set to begin. We can lament the timing if it's "wrong" and praise the Israelis if they have the generosity to only fire up the bulldozers when the time is right.

Of all the aspects that factor into how the gravely serious Israeli-Palestinian conflict ultimately will be resolved - if it will be - none are more trivial than the timing of Israel's imperialist announcements and the personal feelings of people like Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Kerry. The settlements, which doubtless will continue unabated even as the "peace process" allegedly gains momentum, are morally reprehensible, legally baseless and politically disastrous. This is true regardless of when they are announced or whom their announcement offends. To frame this issue any other way is to deliberately lose the plot.

It should never be forgotten that some of THE most vociferous opponents and critics of the Israeli position vis a' vis Palestine are Jewish people, both religious and secular. In this tradition, I append : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35685.htm & may love, light and logic come to pass.

Yes I knew that while AIPAC has been quite successful in stifling the Israeli/Palestinian discussion in this country that... that was not the case in Israel where the parameters of independent thought concerning this subject are much wider. Even so there are healthy cracks beginning to show up here... with columnists Jeff Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine, and Thomas Friedman of the Times speaking out against the hardline Israeli policies in regard to the Palestinians...and they paid a heavy price for speaking their mind, having been harshly citicized by supporters of the Right-wing Likud party...the Zionist. And in some cases they have been branded as being a "self-hating Jew"

My education to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict began for the most part in the late 70s when we met a young free spirited couple in Vermont who chose to follow their conscience...convictions rather than cash in on their educations and privleged upbringing. They were very empathetic to the Palestinian' plight. He had been a professor and she was a mid-wife in Ramallah on the West Bank. While in Vermont visiting family for an extended period of time, they did most of their shopping in second-hand stores, to the chagrin of her Mom & Dad...lol.. who had a beautiful vacation home there. Both of their parents had been diplomats in different countries in Europe where they had spent many of their childhood years. I remember them giving my daughter ...who is the mother to my granddaughter now...and who was in pre-school with their daughter a tee shirt which in green and red (Palestinian colors) lettering in Arabic said, "I Love You." Who would have thought shadz, all these years later how their courage for doing what is right would mean so much to me...especially now...

Just before leaving Vermont on an early morning train for Washington from Bellows Falls VT, where I drove them to, they invited us to visit them in Paris where they were going to live. He had gotten a job (if I remember correctly) translating and reporting back to the French government radio programs from other countries which commented on French foreign policy.

Well, not long after... we did indeed visit them in Paris, taking the Hover Craft to France after visiting my ex-wife's family in Exmouth and Exeter. They were a bit worried when we came as they did not have the time to entertain us because they were preparing to leave and return to their lives in Ramallah. But, they were very relieved when I assured them that we were self-entertaining, and that all they needed to do was point our noses toward the Metro and Eiffel Tower. Then in the evening we shared good conversation, viddles & wine which we had all picked up at markets during the day.

Although, at no time in my life would I have considered myself a yahoo, I was more than a bit unsophisicated compared to most of you Europeans. That being so and having always posessed the ability to laugh at myself, I can relate to Clark very well in European Vacation which has always been one of my favorite silly movies

Here's a personal account, you may like, from Miko Peled...an Israeli General's son.

The beginning is historical fact, stripped of myth, in which one gets an understanding for his willingness to tell his story from a 'raw truth', rarely seen or even allowed. His personal story starts 26 minutes in...poignantly told, of his family's life woven into the sorrow filled Israeli Palestinian tapestry.

The account by the mother of the girl who was killed was telling, sad and beautiful. So many people in her position would have wanted revenge, but she had the intelligence and compassion to understand the bigger picture

It is encouraging to see people get together from both the Palestinian and Israeli communities in a quest for peace

I do wish more people could view your link in its entirety. Thank You Renny

Well Odin, that was an exceptionally strong link from Renneye and I concur wholeheartedly with your entire comment and your last line in particular. Further, I wish that : a) you were still on this forum ; b) you and your loved ones well & c) that you can find time to watch the following - which I append for the standing record for us all here, for future reference and with a very strong recommendation :

History as we know, has always been written by the victors but that doesn't mean it has to be so in this day and age of t'interweb. These are difficult times we're living in and I find my thoughts turning towards as to why you have been banned, with an undue frequency and it is leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

If what you say were true, then you would not know him as ''Odin'' but by his real name. He is taking a sabbatical it seems and I'm sure that he's fine, in so far as you're really inTeresTed. Me thinx that you are here to mix it for your own reasons, whoever you may really be however on the chance you're half genuine, as per the OP, you may be half interested enough to comment on the following :

''Building thousands more settlement units all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem is in no way comparable or proportionate to the release of Palestinian prisoners. The construction of more settlements is equivalent to the annihilation of a two-state solution and the pre-emption of any kind of faith-building measures.''

"When the Israeli prime minister was last in Washington, there was barely a mention of the Palestinians after his meeting with Obama. And barely a word was breathed about the Palestinians at this year's meeting of the most influential of the pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). The focus was firmly on Iran."

I love Jill Stein and I agree with your comment. Given the current situation in Gaza and searching for 'Palestine' here this morning, this post really stood out, so I hope others too will read and reflect upon the post, thread and links here. Peace.

"It's estimated that both President Obama and Mitt Romney will draw out anywhere between 45 and 60 million apiece in November, according to 2008 turnout numbers. But according to one USA Today poll, an estimated 90 million people who could vote this year probably won't, as they're disappointed in both candidates and major political parties. What if just two-thirds of those 90 million people turned out for a candidate with a truly bold vision, who isn't beholden to corporate donors or bought party elites ? It would be a colossal upset for the establishment, and a big win for citizens."

I really do not think that this 'forum-post' deserves any 'reactionary' responses at all but p'raps I ought to prepare for such reactions in the event that I'm accused with that rather unpleasant word that you allude to. I believe in 'The One Democratic State Solution' as a basis for a true, just and enduring peace for all and I will argue my point accordingly and utterly resist any 'coercive attempts' to stifle and deny debate.

An award winning documentary by James Miller { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(filmmaker) } about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a 'must watch'. Finally, the thread that you link to is a veritable 'Juke Box' and is recommended to all readers and music lovers.

It's rather obvious that the community standard against obscenity has prevailed. It may well be short lived because the yuuge orange carrot will be shoving soon with the Juden rep and even contemplating moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as if the U.S. can afford more gasoline to pour there.

Pouring gasoline on the fire makes a great bonfire. "Campfire's burning, campfire's burning. Draw nearer, draw nearer. In the flareup, in the flareup, let's burn off eyebrows." We'll look a bit like a neonate with no eyebrows.

Intifada is probably not in the carrot's vocabulary. Ariel Sharon surely knew how to fry Israel himself, by touching off another intifada by "visiting" the Temple Mount against nearly all sane ones' advice. Democratic election for Gaza City(Israel is Not the only democracy there, contrary to Israeli propaganda) put Hamas into power, with rockets to fire at Israel, which had made its very own torture chamber for itself alright.

The yuuge orange carrot suffers from a form of psychosis, due to the inability to distinguish Jerusalem from the figurative New Jerusalem. The Will destroyed Jerusalem so that a new one can figuratively descend from up on high to set upon the foundation of the ruined Old Temple. Look for the Abomination there in the lunatic asylum first.

From the ICH link .... ''Make no mistake about it, the sum total of Israel's efforts these past 68 years is nothing short of the deliberate infliction upon Palestinians, as a cognizable group, conditions of life and death calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.

And ''In the presence of overwhelming evidence of premeditated Israeli genocide, to argue otherwise is to reduce the dark, evil and systematic deeds of Stalin, Kissinger, Pol Pot and the Hutu state to little more than a collection of misunderstood happenstance.''

Dare you to read & digest that article and/or watch that video by the ever excellent Abby Martin, grapes or you could simply read:

Israel has been a fundamentally hypocritical state so it is cursed, by the Jews' own Holy Book(Old Testament Isaiah 5:8 "Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land."). Israel=Jewish secular state is plainly a contradiction created to fool ignorant people who don't know what 'Jewish' and 'secular' really mean. Israel lives a lie.

'Jewish' means adherence to Judaism, a religion with a
very strict code of admission and membership(essentially via 》Sippe und Heirat《) while 'secular' means 'not pertaining to religion.' How can Israel be singly Jew-religious and irreligious at the same time and still be secure in the land of Arabs? It's possible only in the minds of our abundantly plentiful vegetables of all kinds, including the yuuge orange carrot soon to be shoving (i.e., 》der Welt zu schaffen machen《).

Post-WWII Germany understood the meaning of this song. So did Japan but not Russia. I'm surprised at this though (unless Russia is always somehow retarded, perhaps due to its distinctive alphabets?) because Russia's Catherine the Great and Prussia had shared in the annexation of Poland with each other and both lands went through much hell on Earth with all of the ensuing wars, as cursed by Isaiah 5:8. Nor do China, Iran, and DPRK understand.

Israel needs to go through what Germany and Japan had gone through to learn - having the Jewish mothers driven by cold and hunger to prostitute themselves to feed their children, with the men, gone... . War ashes to flowers, from Here to Eternity.

I am not sure what Russia's Greek based Cyrillic Alphabet has to do with anything and Russians, are anything but "retarded" and furthermore, I think you'll find Catherine The Great was German! Your ''lex talionis'' critique of Israel seems harsh & rooted in the Bible somehow but wasn't it all that Abrahamic Mumbo-Jumbo that lead to all this shit? Who knew Joan Baez sang ''WHATFG'' -in German too? Not me! Isrl/Palstn Solutn: One Person; One Vote; One State? Happy New Year to U & yours grapes + :

Haven't the Silent Majority of Russia, Germany, Poland, etc. suffered enough from all of these stupid wars already? I call Russia retarded because its memories of its Great Patriotic War seemed to have been lost from its people. Here's what we have to remind the Russian people: The Unknown War. This documentary series was made with the cooperation of the former Soviet Union.

Hear not the booms of the big guns, the glorifying music, but the wailings of despair over a dead child. See what's not shown: the breastpocket billfold of a dead soldier, 》Vergissmeinnicht(der Bläuling fliegt nie zurück)《, family photographs of babies, wife, birthday cakes with candles being cut; see the rats gnawing on the dead or alive babies' fingers, maggots by the thousands worming around and flies swarming over the dead bodies(of rats, humans, dogs, cats, and beloved pets, etc.), soldiers taking forced (or rarely paid-for) "comfort" with the mothers and daughters, playing with cutoff women's nipples like shortie little boys playing with their left-at-home marbles, skewering fetuses from pregnant women's wombs with bayonets high up into the air killing women and their babies because the women had not bowed down enough over their bulging bellies to show respect, tying little bells to young women's nipples, stripping them naked, and making them prance around to entertain the troops. Hello, this is Not a llama farm celebrating a festival with llama earrings in the Andes of the Incas. The Andes are better and taller andro "fingers" and "ranges" than my "unicorn" which had cradled and shielded me from mother Nature. Beware of the plumpy pinky-faced ones of Leningrad, they eat people (under German siege).

Hear the sounds of rapes, the grunting swines, the heavy breathings and sweatings, the utter despair and helplessness mixed in with the primal ecstasy, the sooty smell of ashes, acrid smoke, salty and wet tears, metallic taste of blood, etc. What tastes and smells are the bodily fluids oozing from the wounds and orifices? What do the screams do to the nearby family members, relatives, and children psychologically, and traumas to the victims longterm with flashbacks and recoils from their intimate partners? ... All for what? Education for "the Chosen People," "the Mistress Race," or "the Black Aryans in High-Security Castles?"

Why did Russia annex Crimea and infiltrate and instigate Ukraine in defiance of international agreements, such as Budapest and Westphalia? Haven't the Russian people had enough war damages and sufferings already? "Boys will be boys" so let Pootin the Great and Yuuge Orange Carrot have a cowboy-style shootout instead (of wars) in the aptly named Tombstone in Arizona, to show who has the longer fingers to kill a charging tiger. The U.S. guarantees that Pootin the Great's body will not be mutilated. It will be returned honorably to the Russian people. Meet at O.K. Corral at High Noon but please confirm the date for preparations before the duel.

I'm really sorry to have to say it grapes but it's U$A that is ''retarded because its memories ... seem to have been lost from its people'' & maybe the years & years of misinformation & propaganda mean that US' collective memory itself is now suspect!

Now for you to say that - ''we (USA) need to remind the Russian people" of "The Great Patriotic War" is redolent with US-centric hubris. The USSR lost a bare minimum of 25 million people on their own soil & the effects of that (& other) mass depopulation events, are still working out today. As you know, Russia does not call WWII ''The Second World War'' but refers to it as ''The Great Patriotic War'' because it was in existential peril of a racial annihilation BUT after Stalingrad & then Kursk .. The Red Army would have marched & battled all the way to the French coast & could've won the War in Europe on its own IF they had to. The Nazi War Machine was broken by The USSR .. despite many US/UK conceits.

Furthermore ... the Russians were also the only other Allied Boots On The Ground on Japanese territory (Sakhalin etc.) & their entry into that theatre, had far more to do w/Japan's surrender then we are taught in The West. As a footnote ... it may be added that many people understand that tho' Japan was broken by Fire Bombing, Blockade and Battle Defeats; the Two Atom Bombs were more about signalling to The Russians - than it was about ''defeating'' an already defeated Japan.

Your third and fourth paragraphs allude to the horrors of war - not unlike The Rape of Nanking, My Lai & a myriad other horrors visited upon the innocents by rampaging armies, high on blood lust and revenge.I excuse nothing and condemn it all ... but I will NOT pick out The Russians over Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, French in Africa, Spanish in S.America; Imperial UK or its continuation - The Current US Empire.

Re. Crimea .. you are joking, right? Crimea was & is historically Russian for centuries before Krushchev attached it to Ukraine in the 50's. Please do NOT tell me, that after Ukraine decided it would throw in its lot w/Western Gangster Crapitalism after Extreme RW Nationalism was unleashed (cf. Stepan Bandera) that Russia was NOT going to become very concerned about a Russian majority Crimea ..which .. & get this next bit very clearly grapes ... had its historical Black Sea Fleet HQ and ONLY year round, ice free, warm water port in Sebastopol!

The open referendum that Crimea had to stay with Russia, did not need to be gerrymandered and it was obvious what was going to happen after that Neocon Witch Victoria Nuland started shit going in Ukraine.

Russia is a powerful country, which has interests & - it needs to be respected. Perhaps the only plus of tRUMP's presidency, will be a certain lessening of tensions with Russia. In this respect, Obama & HRC are old school, US-MIC, Neocon idiots - who believe in US Primacy and Full Spectrum Dominance - but the world doesn't want that and is more at ease with a multi-polar world - then the US-MIC can compute.

Please stop getting any ''news'' and views from MSM grapes .. it will curdle and cook your mind and fill it with a skewed RW, US-centric propaganda. Do try, inter alia .. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

very nicely done! grapes lays out the u.s. elites view of history and current events which is entirely incorrect factually. you correct it point by point- thanks for putting in the time and effort to do that - now if we could get someone to do that on ms we would be a long way towards our goal.

MSM in USA is in a frenzy trying to falsely blame Russia & Putin for the fiasco that was Hellary Rotten Clinton's defeat to tRUMP! It is fkn shameful beyond belief - that Putin is somehow accused for the fact that HRC was utterly unpalatable to so many of US' 99% .. whether they voted for tRUMP, for someone else or refused to vote!! PotUS tRUMP is Obomber and that fkn bitch's GOP-Lite legacy but Paleo-Cold War, knee-jerk Anti-Russianism is easier for the stupid Dem half-wits,than it is to really analyse whyTF Dems lost so fkn badly but I am stopping right there flip - before I pop a gasket!!! HNY to you & mayda.

I didn't want to rebut here because I realized that I had veered off to a topic (Russia) that should better be debated in a separate posting. Will you, flip, and ImNotMe meet me there instead? By rightful inheritance of more than 1.5 centuries, I claim all of Eurasia as my ancestral Lebensraum. Should I drive out all of the squatters?

as i said you simply repeat elite opinion. demonize russia to try to create an enemy to justify the military. no real evidence for this but non needed right. the us elite back nazis in ukraine but we are the good guys. putin attacks isis in allepo and he is the bad guy.

we have been through all of this before and imnotme layed it out very well. why do it again. i have no interest in discussing with those who cannot free their minds from orthodoxies

Russia's Greek based Cyrillic Alphabet has probably made Russia a perennially retarded country set apart from much of Europe which teaches English to most of the children. Even China, facing a similar (and arguably worse) problem, had started the romanization initiative many decades ago, that resulted in Pinyin and also many people who can deal with the U.S., speaking English(the de facto most dominant language of global trade). The Russian people somehow give Pootin the Great sky-high approval ratings even as he plants the seed of more wars on Russia. Russians probably need Germany's annexation to civilize it with the height of enlightened civilization acquired through bloodbaths again and again.

Let Angela the Great mother the Russian people. She's the one who "gets it" apparently, a rarity these days in the new bombie boom on the world stage as the baby-boomer flower children fade away, wouldn't you agree?

Russia is comparable to the single U.S. state of California despite its massive land of Siberia. I think the maps produced with the Mercator projection gave the Russian people and probably much of the world's population an exaggerated grandiose notion about Russia's importance. The only thing that I think Russia is scary is its nuclear weapons but I fear far more of their not really being under the control of the Russian state than their actually being used intentionally as Russia does not have jihad in its vocabulary to do suicide bombing. Russia would surely face massive retaliation to its populations densely packed on the European side of its country should it happen.

I didn't quite grasp this until I had found out the population of Moscow. Wow, it far exceeds New York's but that means the rest of Russia just cannot be very populated. Nuking Russian cities will take Russia easily to the Black Forest age when mushrooms grown from decomposing cadavers will become the staple food for everything from potatoes to cabbages.

Russia is NOT "a perennially retarded country" and for you to say such a thing, in and of itself - shows real retardation; a heavily propagandised mind; hubris & - an unjustified US Exceptionalism!!! You think English is the world's sine quo non and that Russia and China won't cope without it?!! Btw China is the world's oldest continuous civilisation with a written culture going back 5k+ years and the Russians give Putin far higher ''approval ratings'' far higher than tRUMP .. who only got <20% of all adult votes in U$A!

''Nuking Russian cities''?!!! And - ''mushrooms grown from decomposing cadavers''?!! There is something really dark, deep in your psyche grapes - just like in The Wider Collective USA perhaps?! Get well soon.

"You think English is the world's sine quo non and that Russia and China won't cope without it?!!"

No, English is absolutely Non-essential for countries which don't deal with the anglophone countries. DPRK and Cuba have coped rather marvelously without much English for a very long time. Russia and China have also done that. However, without the Politburo's decisive turn towards English, there would have been no "Rise of China."

I'm not entirely comfortable with this decisive turn towards English. I still remember the Kaiser's decision to have English instead of French taught to Germans near the beginning of the 20th century. Sharing a language did Not help ward off the worst artificial calamities to befall humanity. Great Britain, U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Malta, Gibraltar, Singapore, Malaya, South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya, and Germany all spoke mostly or some English and that might have actually exacerbated Germany's envy of the British Empire. Some "walls" provide stability. China's envy is leading us all down the same old path. 养虎贻患(Does 卍 instead of 卐 really make such a difference? 養龙遗卍?)

Every country in the world can cope perfectly within their borders as well as with those they have alternative communications capabilities with. But it is kind of a clumsy work around in general as English has pretty much been adopted through research science and technological innovation to be the common language due to development of decades. This could change and go Cyrillic or Chinese - but would take decades of reeducation for the rest of the world before it became common.

"Every country can cope perfectly within their borders as well as with those they have alternative communications with."

I only wish that it were true but it isn't. Multiculturalism without a lingua franca requirement pretty much guarantees that the country will have a fair amount of divisions, perhaps even leading eventually to a breakup. ImNotMe objects to my cheerleading role for English. He didn't quite get that I was just taking my rather complex already linguistic environment as I had found it. English happens to be the closest to a lingua franca worldwide so I advocate its adoption by anyone who wants to avail themselves of global economic opportunities.

I'm multilingual and multicultural pledging my subservience to English as the lingua franca. Having Chinese as lingua franca is fine with me in the same way as English is fine with India. German is fine with me, too, due to its being dominant in North Central Europe and known well by the largest number of Europeans.

Going Cyrillic takes more effort for me but I frankly don't trade or communicate much with those countries in Cyrillic. (I'm somewhat disappointed that we had allowed Russia to lapse into isolation after ending the Cold War so I was honestly irritated a bit by the Cyrillic alphabets - see? different languages can quickly divide people emotionally, just as at the Tower of Babel, a curse from God, the Supreme Fascist Dictator[ALL religious fundamentalists aspiring to emulate God, Elohim, Allah, etc. are Fascists so we have "billions upon billions" of them, as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, as God had promised to Abram/Abraham - why did God add "ham" to bless him? Did it derive from a pig with multiple spouses to produce numerous offspring since the blessed monogamous Isaac didn't get a name change?])

I can get by knowing only a few "shoot-the-breeze" sentences to warm things up a bit and when the going gets tough, switching full-bore to English(even the very culturally proud ones often know English fluently - speaking their native tongues was mainly a matter of me paying homage - foreigners are often forgiving and will go with English if I start struggling with my linguistic limits - they know the feelings when they learnt English).

It'll be great if everyone should become at least bilingual to maintain access to their ancestral culture(s) as well as knowing a lingua franca for economic adaptability for livelihood. American/British English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish are close to being lingua franca for significant portions of the world so everyone should know at least one of them. We may even be able to ward off or delay Alzheimer's disease in many people's families ("Ronnie" and Nancy Reagan's came to mind) and save huge amounts of social, monetary, and emotional costs worldwide.

Does Europe have lower rates of Alzheimer's dementia cases than the U.S. since most Europeans speak at least two languages but Americans are predominantly monolingual? Could the cultural clash we are experiencing be decreasing the Alzheimer's dementia rate by promoting multilingualism?

Yes, foot-in-mouth flex-baby-leg syndrome afflicts many denizens of (the communicative toe capital of the U.S.) New Amsterdam(yay, Amerika first, Nederland Second, with Humor!) due to its being at the low-bottom triangular end of the gigantic funnel of Jew Jerk State, arguably the yuugest bladder "visible from space" equipped with the phallic "Man heeft ding eiland" that pisses golden showers at Lady Liberty through (the assault-and-) Battery Park. The disease is endemic due to having so many delicatessens stuffing salami, bacon, and Hebrew Franks with salmonella into us. It's Nowhere as bad though as the actions at the global anal sphincter happening right now: the duplicitous sleight-of-hand "clearing" of Israeli settlements on occupied territories and Iranian missile test's 》der After.《 The Jew shall jerk. Norovirus yields higher throughputs from Both ends.

We're still missing Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and DPRK as important casts in this global 》Scheiß-Fest《. Russia and China have already been acting up. Stay tuned. Everyone, I repeat, everyone needs a golden shower before entering the 》Schwimmbad《.

The U.S. is Exceptional. When I can finally watch native-country-made Saturday Night Live episodes about Xi Jinping in Chinese and Vladimir Putin in Russian available freely to their respective nationals without them being persecuted or prosecuted, I'll curb my saying that the U.S. is exceptional. I love Humor, especially from Russia and Angina with Love.

"Ancientness" does not correlate with greatness. Why didn't you mention India? It has an even more ancient civilization than China's. China looks down upon India and I suspect that China is not alone.

Putin's so-called "approval" rating is the reason why I think the Russians are still perennially retarded. There may well be some basis for having Russia as a part of the Lebensraum. Russia had never been a reliable ally in any war (no-honor). Russia still doesn't know whether it should belong in the family of European nations even after the efforts of Catherine the Great.

As for the darkness deep in my psyche, I know, I know. It's been there for a long long time. The most brilliant flash of enlightenment came through the darkness(of teenage suicidal thoughts). No one plays fireworks in bright sunlight to impress. Plumb the depths of despair and the most beautiful, fluorescent, and cleanest yellow lotus flower may yet bloom amidst the rising methane bubbles from the very dark ooze. From within the deep dark muck, the seed of kindness and understanding yields transcendence.

I tried to possess this most beautiful plant by moving it to my aquarium. It died. I suspect that it needed the deep dark muck or whatever its environment held. Behold the beauty while it lasts. Possessing the wild beauty is for losers.

I eat mushrooms and I'm fully aware from what they come. I accept that I'm a part of this cycle of recirculating nutrients that I'll join in earnest someday. After the bombie boom, there'll likely be many cadavers and with sunlight blackened out by soot and smoke in the sky, nothing can be grown for years. Mushrooms will become survival food. How long it'll last may well depend on whether cannibalism sets in, too, for the impatient ones.

For an understanding of what is(Aleppo and Mosul?), and what was, and what is to come, remember Leningrad for Lebensraum. "In time of famine people revealed themselves stripped of all trumpery. Some turned out marvellous, incomparable heroes. Others - scoundrels, villains, murderers, cannibals. There were no half measures."

Eating mushrooms will be no worse than manufacturing false intelligence regarding the weapons of mass destruction underneath Saddam Hussein's palace or his seeking yellow-cake uranium in Niger. Now let me also manufacture an intelligence of the utmost importance to New Yorkers: Donald Trump put a nuclear bomb in the Trump Tower in Manhattan to safeguard his family. If terrorists attack Trump Tower, he'll nuke Manhattan to kill them. He'll also order all Trump properties worldwide be safeguarded in the same manner against terrorists' attacks. He's one tough cookie, my kind of Boom Boom Baby!

The Iraqis could have had huge amounts of mushrooms grown. It's just too bad that they didn't have enough darkness - they're too bright and dry there. I think Russia and China have the sufficient darkness and wetness for their ample domestic production of mushrooms(feeding them poo and keeping them moist and in the dark is the formula for success). 你们是蘑菇吗? Вы грибы?

Yes "Ancientness" does not correlate with greatness" .. just like militarily powerful does NOT equate to EXCEPTIONAL - and I didn't ''mention India'' because it didn't figure in your previous response - to which I was replying but OF COURSE India is an ancient and great culture too & China doesn't culturally ''look down on India'' - quite the opposite actually ... given they know that it is where The Buddha came from!!!

You seem able to regard entire nations - in this case Russia - as ''perennially retarded'' and then you go on to say that there ''may well be some basis for having Russia as a part of the Lebensraum'' & ''Russia had never been a reliable ally in any war''. WTF kinda Nazi loving shit is this grapes and do you know or realise or want to forget that ... it was The Russians who lost a minimum of 25m people in WW2 (which they call The Great Patriotic War) AND that it was The Russians - who broke The Nazi War Machine at Stalingrad & Kursk and who'd have marched & beaten The Nazis all the way to the French Coast if they had to?!!

You may "eat mushrooms" grapes .. but I am NOT reading any more of your crapola above - tho' I could tell you a thing or two about Aleppo and Mosul - two of the oldest continuously occupied cities on Earth.

Possibly good advice BUT alas we are so few here now that to alienate and ignore each other could well be counter-productive. This site is still - one of the last standing, functional and extant sites representing OWS. At a time when people look for alternatives to Trumpish Lunacy, this site really should be opened up. I encourage all of here to post, whenever possible. As an aside ... any noises from or contact details for our Scandinavian comrade? Also as you & mayda were there & thereabouts, I draw your attention to:

I strongly suspect that the Israelis do not read or understand their own Holy Book or we wouldn't have this much of a mess in the Middle East. I don't own the Jewish version but I was told that the Old Testament in my Christian Bible is substantially identical to that of Judaism so I use it. The Deity of the Old Testament is indeed harsh so it's not I, just making it all up.

I agree that Abrahamic Mumbo-Jumbo(AMJ) is somewhat toxic. I just need to pull down my pants to show you my missing prepuce. The Empire had much of this AMJ and I suspect that my Mom had fallen under the spell of the Empire's erroneous AMJ and bedwetting-"curing" teachings and had genital mutilation inflicted on me as a grade schooler. It was painful on multiple levels(relational, physical, mental, psychological, etc.). Jews love to make things up apparently, being crafty mind twisters really. The response Must be in the same realm. It's fundamental physics that similar frequencies can interact to create great effects but dissimilar frequencies cannot.

The meaningful acronym WHA T FG applies well to the northcentral European plains of so many wars therefore singing it in German is very appropriate since Germany has borders with so many countries and has been in wars almost forever. The grassland of the video is meditative to me because the many juggernauts "mowing a lawn" repeatedly had greatly influenced my life's origin and trajectory: 90%+ death rate of the offspring in my father's generation on his side and 50%+ death rate of the offspring in my generation. I Hate wars and the damned "walls" that had cleaved our families into pieces here and there(some graceful and very brave souls had tried to help so yes, I still believe in humanity's possessing Grace, not meriting total destruction). On this gut level, I think I understand why Israel is so important to the Jewish diaspora. I want a field of wild flowers, not a well-juggernaut-"mowed" suburban lawn. Let the war ashes fertilize the flowers. Well, yes, I am still a starry-eyed"flower" child. "The sun(on Earth) rose in my eyes."

The solution is either two states(which is getting farther out of reach with the Jewish settlements on occupied lands) per Oslo Accord or One Israeli state formed by the annexation of all occupied lands conferring immediate and full Israeli citizenship to All residents of the annexed lands.

Extreme Nationalism has taken over Israeli society and the irony of a RW Race Based Ideology being in such a sway in a society, where many of the founders were victims of Germanic Aryan Racial Conceits, can not be lost on the rest of the world. Also, to regard oneself as a member of God's Chosen People is arguable The Original Racist Concept. Not sure I can help you with what your Mom inflicted upon you in the name of a "Covenant with God" but I can recommend both this article and website to you:

From which I'll very briefly except this: ''When Netanyahu has enough people convinced that his political decisions are sacred, he becomes a very powerful politician indeed. That is how to understand the Iran deal hysteria, and his ability to waltz into the US Congress to standing ovations while attacking the U.S. president.''

I thought that you would see meaning in - "WHATFG" acronym, as a play between ''Where Have All The Flowers Gone & What The Fk, Germany'' but I also add that, the re-unified Germany that we have today, despite its problems and history, is one of THE most 99% friendly, Progressive nations on Earth & from where I believe, we've much to learn from.

Finally, I add that I too strongly believe that successive RW Israeli administrations, have so obviated any ''Two State Solution''.. so as to make inevitable - ''The One State Solution'' that was eventually to resolve South Africa's Apartheid State of Affairs! Also fyi, see:

It's too bad everyone sold Jill down the river, the conversations we are having would look dramatically different. Not sure if she would be able to lead it through or not, but at least it would be a start.

The Greens can't ''stop the problem'' on their own but they can perhaps help to prise open the extremely limited terms of debate about Israel/Palestine in the US. If you read the short OP, you would have read but maybe not noted for example :

''United States policy regarding Israel and Palestine must be revised to make international law, peace and human rights for all people, no matter their religion or nationality, the central priorities. While the U.S. government sometimes voices support for this principle in name, in practice U.S policy towards Palestine and Israel has violated this principle more often than not.

''In particular, the United States has encouraged the worst tendencies of the Israeli government as it pursues policies of occupation, apartheid, assassination, illegal settlements, blockades, building of nuclear bombs, indefinite detention, collective punishment, and defiance of international law.

''Instead of allying with the courageous proponents of peace within Israel and Palestine, our government has rewarded consistent abusers of human rights. There is no peace or justice or democracy at the end of such a path. We must reset U.S. policy regarding Israel and Palestine, as part of a broader revision of U.S. policy towards the Middle East.'' Also please try to consider :

Let's go a bit further and say that USA policy to the world needs to change. Export peace - export the ability to end strife over fossil fuel resources - the strife to have abundant electrical energy and abundant transportation - which makes a society able to address it's issues of providing clean water of harvesting fields of food crops of getting the food crops transported to every corner of those societies of getting Dr.s out to see to the population and gives the population a better access to their city centers of education and health care.

It is not just a matter of not supporting violence it is a matter of addressing the causes of violence. Politics and Religion are easier to discuss rationally when your people are not starving or dying of thirst or disease or lack of care facilities.

"The government generally relies on marshalling patriotic emotion and reflexive loyalty rather than on making a sensible case for going to war. Much of the discussion that does take place is a sham because the government officials who pretend to listen to other opinions, as U.S. leaders did most recently during 2002 and early 2003, have already decided what they are going to do, no matter what other people may say. The rulers know that once the war starts, nearly everybody will fall into line and “support the troops”."

Thank you - you have just provided more emphasis to the fact that the people need to continue to band together to make change towards building a peaceful prosperous and healthy society that works towards doing the same for the rest of the world and for All peoples.

As - PEACE is for us all and Paternalistic, Abrahamic, Monotheistic Mumbo-Jumbo has served us so poorly to date. Consider, 'Spiritual Supremacism' is but a tiny breath away from 'Racial Supremacism' !!

There have been natural barriers keeping populations apart. Now cultures that have developed in isolation are squeezed together in urban situations. Fairness is not part of the equation. No one can be satisfied. Christians have less to say about the problem, but on the technicality Jews and Muslims are anti-Christians, Christians have concerns. Is there any better solution for the long term problem than apartheid?

Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet perhaps, not as Divine.
I think the question was asking for a better solution for the long term. This would mark the passage of time in terms of centuries rather than years or decades. South African apartheid lasted less than 50 years by comparison Christianity has been around for over 2000 years.

Jews started killing Christians from day 1, but Jerusalem was not founded by the Jews. Jerusalem existed 2000 years before David became king. Jerusalem was under the Roman Empire from before the time of Christ until the Muslim Arabs conquered it in 634. Christianity became the state religion of the Romans. Christianity shaped Western Civilization for over 1000 years. Constantinople stood as a capital of Christendom for over a thousand years until captured by Ottoman Turks in 1453.

In terms of centuries there has always been a state of war between Jews, Christians and Muslims, much like a virus that is dormant for years, suddenly becomes virulent and kills the host.

Religion might be our undoing. The separation of Church and State is nothing to be played with. Is our government capable of defending the Constitution or will it be further weakened by pandering to special interests?

Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, told Politico that former Sen. Rick Santorum's appearance at an event hosted by another Messianic Jewish organization, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, was "insensitive and offensive."

The USA is taking sides in a three-way contest. Christians are being outflanked. Santorum, a Roman Catholic, founded the Congressional Working Group on Religious Freedom in 2003. Santorum sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (WRFA) with U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA). The bill first was introduced in 2002 with 15 co-sponsors but did not leave committee. Santorum and Kerry re-introduced it in 2005 with a corresponding House bill, also to no avail. John Kerry has subsequently brought it to committee again in 2008 and 2010. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs came out in strong support of the measure.

Technically the Christian theological theory holds that Easter obsoletes Yom Kippur. Christians should be offended by it. How can Christians celebrate their religion in its pure form with Jews and Muslims practicing theirs in the same town?

Christians have fled or are persecuted in countries dominated by Islam.

''Technically the Christian theological theory holds that Easter obsoletes Yom Kippur. Christians should be offended by it. How can Christians celebrate their religion in its pure form with Jews and Muslims practicing theirs in the same town?'' OMGosh !!! How'd I miss this ?!! R U 4 real ?! Now lookey here :

You do get that the man you call Jesus (Yeshua?) was a practising (sic) Jewish person (possibly of royal, Davidic lineage) who would have been mortified at the blasphemy of anyone regarding him as 'consubstantive' with G-d, let alone formulating a new cult / creed around that, right ?! Weird, huh ?

Heard of Constantine? Or the Councils of Nicea, Alexandria, Carthage, Troyes, Whitby etc.? Judaism, Christianity, Islam ... all this Abrahamic Mumbo-Jumbo is leading us all down the toilet bowl of history as we strive to move forward whilst constantly looking back and still we wonder why we end up on our asses ! Sorry - I did not look at any of your links - just not my bag - but somewhat hypocritically, I do recommend my own link !! FUCK Religion ; OHMMMmmm 4 spiRitUality ~i~ !!! Merry Christ Mash ;-)

Why and how is atheism overrated? It's a simple position using logic. We don't believe in things that have no evidence of existing. Nothing more. If anything, it's underrated. It's the strongest position in relation to God there is. Everyone on earth should adopt it.

Spoken like a true 'zero sum game' simpleton !!! You show no instinct at all for when 'physics' touches 'metaphysics' !! Consider 'T', that : ''Man does not live by bread alone'' !

I like Richard Dawkins & have several of his books but he's an 'MSR'--'Militant Scientific Rationalist', who seems to lose sight of the ever evolving frontiers of science. Recently 'Theoretical Physics' (sic) tells us that ALL our known physics can only really account for about 3% of The Universe because the observed gravitational effects and equations do not work without an allusion to a 'constant' of ~97% - which is now termed 'Dark Matter & Dark Energy', ie. stuff (and 'dimensions' ?!) we just can't explain ! Now think 'Dark Entities' !! Then calmly try to ask yourself, how you came to be possessed by several of those, lololol !!!

Logic is insufficient to attain all truths - look up Goedel's proof. There are truths that lie BEYOND the provably true. Perhaps our current logic system is defective by assuming binary truth values of either true or false. In any case, we should recognize that logic has its limits for now.

Gödel's proof or rather Gödel's incompleteness theorems do not support the statements that

"Logic is insufficient to attain all truths"

and

"There are truths that lie BEYOND the provably true."

The conclusions of Gödel's theorems are only proven for the formal theories that satisfy the necessary hypotheses. Not all axiom systems satisfy these hypotheses, even when these systems have models that include the natural numbers as a subset. For example, there are first-order axiomatizations of Euclidean geometry, of real closed fields, and of arithmetic in which multiplication is not provably total; none of these meet the hypotheses of Gödel's theorems. The key fact is that these axiomatizations are not expressive enough to define the set of natural numbers or develop basic properties of the natural numbers. Regarding the third example, Dan Willard (2001) has studied many weak systems of arithmetic which do not satisfy the hypotheses of the second incompleteness theorem, and which are consistent and capable of proving their own consistency (see self-verifying theories).

Gödel's theorems only apply to effectively generated (that is, recursively enumerable) theories. If all true statements about natural numbers are taken as axioms for a theory, then this theory is a consistent, complete extension of Peano arithmetic (called true arithmetic) for which none of Gödel's theorems apply in a meaningful way, because this theory is not recursively enumerable.

The second incompleteness theorem only shows that the consistency of certain theories cannot be proved from the axioms of those theories themselves. It does not show that the consistency cannot be proved from other (consistent) axioms. For example, the consistency of the Peano arithmetic can be proved in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZFC), or in theories of arithmetic augmented with transfinite induction, as in Gentzen's consistency proof.

The fact of the matter is that no state of affairs can be publicly known to be true without demonstratable knowledge of that state of affairs being true. The only state of affairs that an individual can know to be true that cannot be proved to other's is that individual's private psychological state.

If we keep on augmenting the axioms of an axiomatic system, we can obviously arrive at a state of affairs where all known truths are either provably true or axiomatically true.

I ask for example if it is truly "playing fair" to include Goldbach's Conjecture that every even natural number greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers as being axiomatically true for the natural numbers. 4=2+2, 6=3+3, 8=3+5, 10=5+5, 12=5+7, 14=7+7, etc. Should this statement be provable in a countably finite number of steps using a minimal set of axioms sufficient to generate the natural numbers? No one seems to know. I think it is a cop-out by mathematicians to include unproven conjectures as axioms.

It may be fair game though if it is truly "too hard" as happened for Riemann's Conjecture. If we accept that 150 years of mathematics counting on it being true can be flushed out as garbage, we can certainly allow ourselves to play for a LONG while in the world of make-believe.

There is also the reality check to reckon with. I believe that if a subset of mathematics proves insufficient to span the realm of science, it should be rejected as deficient or defective.

The mere interaction of individuals can change the private psychological states of them but there is no such thing as a truly private psychological state to begin with because we are falling into the trap of object-oriented programming's model rather than the more general and applicable field concept of physics.

The claim to "falling into the trap of object-oriented programming's model" does not invalidate the fact of private psychological states. Any thoughts or emotions one experiences beyond the knowledge of others are private psychological states or more precisely, private psychological experiences. Whether or not a psychological experience is considered to be 'truly' private by involvement of perhaps some application of brain monitoring equipment doesn't invalidate the fact that at any given time, individuals are having psychological experiences that are beyond the knowledge of everyone else thereby making those experiences private and any truths as to the nature of those experiences only known to the individual. Any truths to be publicly known outside of an individual's private psychological experience cannot be known to be true without either deductive or observable demonstration.

Private psychological states must eventually have external demonstrations to be valid which make them not private. Our thinking of them having an independent existence prior to the demonstrations is illusory because to know a state is to measure it and measurement changes the state. Quantum computing counts on that fact of not measuring the state while computing to break through the computational time barrier. Quantum phenomena underly everything, psychological states included. A private psychological state exists for all practical purposes due to the macroscopic nature of our brains but the probability of its being in a specific state is always less than one. If you allow a superposition of different states to be called a state, we can be in agreement.

"Private psychological states must eventually have external demonstrations to be valid which make them not private."

No, private psychological states must only be experienced by an individual without observation by anyone else to be private. No external validity is required of what one knows or observes of one's self. External validity is only required of things to be publicly known.

Public observations of individuals in general verify the existence of psychological states such as emotions in others but without a means of literally reading an individual's mind, the particulars of an individual's psychological state remain known only to that individual and are thus private.

Private psychological states are very much things of the past due to globalization, security obsession, technological advances, and the widespread belief in the scientific, state security, political, business, and technological communities that what can be done to monitor private psychological states SHOULD be done for power, profits, and fun, as has already been made extremely clear by the recent revelations courtesy of Edward Snowden. There are ongoing undertakings to make private psychological states available to the eel-ite-s for detailed examinations. Previous claims of widespread "security" monitoring fell short of "habeas corpus," a bit like why O.J. Simpson was not convicted of murders but was found guilty of wrongful deaths. Subsequent revelations proved the tin-foil-hat people CORRECT!

I was "paranoid" too due to observations regarding the dark-looking building at NSA headquarter. The most paranoid people turned out to be the ones in the best position to know the truths about monitoring. Stuxnet had the signature of long-term early involvement of the NSA.

Privacy is an artificial construct and is rapidly becoming a thing of the past so I am acting accordingly. If I am being monitored for my private psychological states, their picking through my digital imprints may as well give them a mindful about my intentions. Whether it is due to naivete or ignorance, the nonchalant attitudes of the youngs about being monitored speak volumes about what people being constantly monitored turn into - cookie monsters - plastering their brains all over their digital (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) walls for the whole world to see. Num num, cowabunga!

Private psychological states are very much a thing of the present and shall remain so until the day comes that everyone is either directly hooked up to or scanned by advanced brain monitoring technology.

With Big-Data Initiatives underway, signal processing techniques, and facial recognition software, all of these tidbits will soon yield total information awareness or near-zero privacy. Everything IS physical, including mind-space, security-space, and cyber-space. No one can escape, save Adam Lanza's private psychological state.

Everyone IS NOTeither hooked up to or connected to advanced brain monitoring technology. No one with any kind of current equipment can read the thoughts of random individuals. Everyone's thoughts remain private which is why whistleblowers are never preempted and captured Muslim militants are tortured for information that is otherwise beyond access in their private thoughts.

"Everyone IS NOTeither hooked up to or connected to advanced brain monitoring technology. No one with any kind of current equipment can read the thoughts of random individuals. Everyone's thoughts remain private which is why whistleblowers are never preempted and captured Muslim militants are tortured for information that is otherwise beyond access in their private thoughts."

Right now, not everyone is under universal surveillance (partly because of the lack of interest) but the Omni-Net IS being built with Tera/terror-funding as we swoosh along the asymptotes into the Singularity. Anyone in any advanced modern society can be subject to circumstantial inference about their private psychological state. Mind you that it is a long tradition in human societies to put people onto death rows based on circumstantial evidence. Drones that can read car license plates and recognize faces will soon be enhanced in other ways to augment sensors already in place to provide more continuous monitoring. It is not much harder than switching cellular phone coverage from one cell-phone tower to another.

No problem. I just apologised for a slow reply myself elsewhere and got down voted for my trouble, lol. Thanks for the great Snowden link and a very interesting link about Glenn Greenwald. They're two very courageous and remarkable men. More in keeping with your thread though, I just sent you this link on another thread but will do so again here - http://www.nationofchange.org/blogs/lawrence-davidson/two-state-solution-or-illusion-1380049239 . Never Give Up! Go Occupy (everything but The West Bank)! Solidarity.

A deep, sad and striking piece from Lawrence Davidson and I wholeheartedly recommend your thought provoking link to all serious readers who are interested in these matters & in compliment, I append fyi :

''Members of Congress who consistently support the political Zionist position are usually motivated by something other than ideology. They are motivated by money. That does not necessarily make them bad people, it just makes them slaves to a bad political system. The ability to call into question their financial allegiance to the Zionists is readily possible when a publicly recognized difference evolves between the desires of the voters who put them in office and the desires of this particular special interest. That now seems to be happening in the case of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran.'' from your strong Lawrence Davidson link & further to the Snowden piece :

“Her entire approach to this issue has been to do damage control for the NSA…. She is an apologist and a flack for the surveillance state, she is aligned with the Obama White House with that agenda, and we at the grassroots must push back against that kind of a politics.”

Re. ''Diane Feinstein is an establishment stooge in charge of overseeing the most secret parts of The Establishment! What's wrong with that picture?'' succinctly & accurately put and the answer would be ''Covering Up and Obfuscating''. Thanx for another very good 'NoC' article by David Lindorff, from which :

''What Alexander and his truth-challenged boss Clapper are not considering, though, is whether there is also a bigger question: Isn’t maintaining democratic freedoms and the trust of the American people more important than collecting every possible datum of information about them, and monitoring their every move and every communication? - The answer, of course, is obvious, which is why Alexander and Clapper are not asking it.'' Also fyi :

How many times have American presidents tried to broker a deal between the two -
and had the Palestinians back out ?
How many Jews are in the Palestinian cabinet or legislature ? 0
How many Mulims/Arabs are in the Israeli cabinet or legislature ? 12

Lets get down to the real nitty-gritty-
one of the main reasons Israel is such a success is based on the support of Jews from around the world.
one of the main reasons "Palestine" is such a basket case is based on the NON-support of Arabs/Muslim countries from around the world.

imagine what would happen if all of the Arab/Muslim counties used just 1% of their oil revenues to train Palestinians and build infrastructure
Maybe there are reasons for that -
and reasons why Israel assimilated Jews from around the world
but Jordan refused to assimilate its brothers.

When Arabs controlled the temple mount, no Jews were allowed.
Now that Israel does, everyone is allowed

GAZA: part 1 of 2In our recent elections, it would be very hard to come up with a more
significant reason for the republican losses than the fact thatthe republicans told the truth about themselves.
Why can’t we also learn the truth from what the “Palestinian people”
say about the “Palestinian people” ?

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview withPalestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein.

Truth does not change. Truth is truth.
If something was true 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, it is still true today.
And the truth is that only 30 years ago, there was very little confusion on this issue of Palestine.
You might remember the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir making virtually the same statement: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Golda Meir’s “racism and bigotry and hate mongering.” They love to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false – an intentional lie, a strategic deception –but is source from a PLO leader!

What they don’t like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Meir had told the truth –that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.

Pretty clear, isn’t it? It is even more specific than Golda Meir’s statement. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind. Arafat himself made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993.
It demonstrates conclusively that the Palestinian nationhood argument is the real strategic deception – one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.

On the same day Arafat ( who was born in CAIRO EGYPT ) signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, Arafat stated:
“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of “Palestine”, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”

No matter how many people delude themselves that the aspirations for Palestinian statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves.
In the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as “Palestine” was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I.
The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. In recent decades, parts have been “occupied” by Egypt and Israel.
It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.
Why now has it become such a critical priority?
The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless terrorism over 40 years.Golda Meir was telling the truth. Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated, pronouncements of Arafat and his lieutenants.
Israel and the West must not surrender to terrorism by granting the killers just what they want – a public relations triumph and a strategic victory. It’s not too late to say no to terrorism. It’s not too late to say no to another Arab terror state to launch attacks at the only Jewish state.
It’s not too late to tell the truth about Palestine.
……………………………………………. by Joseph Farah

Are you afraid to believe Farah & Muhsein & Arafat ?

WATCH WITH YOUR OWN EYES
Are there any historical errors in these clips ? IN THESE CLIPS

I do not hate Arabs or Palestinians – but we cannot hope to solve the middle east problem unless we understand what these people believe. And sadly, it will be as easy as ending the generations of anti-minority - homophobic - anti-woman beliefs so skillfully taught by parents and religions in the confederate states for generations.

Your last sentence plugs in totally and echoes very clearly the whole 'Clash Of Civilisation' narrative, as espoused by Samuel Huntington and so beloved of Neo-Cons, yet you make out that you're some kind of progressive whereas you behave and think like an illiberal, right-wing, nationalist for Israel. I'm gonna go to the bathroom now, come back, roll a wee medicinal exotic cigarette and then slap you straight in the mouth in reply to your somewhat unhinged comments above & below, so expect a "part 2 of 2" too.

Someone here had a dictionary article on Palestine from the 40s. Plain as day, there is was. Palestine. With Transjordan to the north.

I guess after our Democrat president - to our special friend who is obviously paid by them- nuked two cities to death, and we marched into the ME and carved it up, thats all it takes for people to think something.

Are there some forum rules that I'm unaware of ?!!! I've had a reply comment here kinda shadow banned 'cause I can see it but apparently no one else can !! Trigger happy moding and gatekeeping for any other entity other than The 99% is a bit naughty, transparent and ultimately - counter-productive ! I can't really be bothered to repeat the whole thing but here are the salient links, though I'm very far from impressed :

GAZA: part 2 of 2
A few more clips that I believe show the truth.
I would be interested to see any evidence of factual errors in these clips.
Clips about the poor conditions in Gaza or military actions by Israel do not disprove Arafat’s statements or thousands of attacks on Israeli civilians by bus bombs or rockets. There MUST be at least one or two errors in the hundreds of historical facts posted here. Can you find them?

Harry Truman immediately approved the state of Israel –
did he hate Arabs because so many Arabs fought against the Allies - for Hitler?
I do not know.
Jimmy Carter & Bill Clinton pushed the PLO and the PA to sign a deal –
did they hate Arabs?

I do not hate Arabs or Palestinians – but we cannot hope to solve the middle east problem unless we understand what these people believe.
I believe that paying a parent to send their child to their deaths to kill people
[ as in Mumbai ] is nothing less than inhuman.
Not the bomber,
not the parents,
but the paymaster & the Imam.
Maybe you disagree?

Have you read the Quran? I have read 20%-25% in at least three translations.
Do you believe in fatwas? Does Ayaan Hirsi Ali hate Islam? Does Salmon Rushdie?
Have you ever heard radical Imams & Muslims spewing hate and violence –IN ENGLISH?
Listen – if you dare - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njRKaX0ORuI
Do you know what taqiyya is?

The truth is the truth – not bigotry or hatred.
Some people do evil. For money. For power. For religion.

American soldiers gave smallpox infected blankets to native Americans.
Bush’s cronies approved torture.
Southern traitors started a war against America & their descendents celebrate it!
BP killed oil rig workers.
Spanish catholics burned Spanish Jews.
The truth is the truth – not bigotry or hatred.
Some people do evil. For money. For power. For religion.

DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO LEARN THE TRUTH?Pre 1948 - How did the nation of Israel get it's land?

"At the end of World War I, some of “Palestine's” land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80% of the resident Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.
Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73% of Jewish plots were purchases from large landowners, not poor Arabs."
-- quoted from The Peel Commission (1937)

"The Arab charge that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when purchased. There was at the time at least of earlier sales little evidence that the owners possessed either the resources or training needed to develop the land. Jews paid more than $20 million (at 1936 rates) to Arab landowners, mostly large estate holders. In 1944, Jews paid between $1000 and $1100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semi-arid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre
(U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)" --Land Ownership in Palestine, 1880-1948

According to British government statistics,prior to the establishment of the State of Israel,

8.6% of the land area now known as Israel was owned by Jews;
3.3% by Arabs who remained there;
16.5% by Arabs who left the country.More than 70% of the land was owned by the British Government.Under international law, ownership passed to Israel in 1948.
The public lands included most of the Negev Desert --half of Palestine's post-1922 total area
--1948 Survey by British Mandate Government

From 1920 to 1948 Jewish organizations accepted partition plans that gave the Jewish state as little as 20% of the current state of Israel. The Arabs refused the deal or any compromise.
From the 1850's to 1948, 90% of the land Jews lived on was purchased at very high prices from Arabs. The rest was uninhabited land and passed from the British government to the Israeli government, under international law.
In 1948, any Arab that stayed in Israel became Israeli citizens with full rights to vote and form political parties. Most fled, anticipating that the Arab armies would quickly defeat Israel, and they could return home, without being thought of as traitors. Now whose fault is it for deserting?
In 1948 at the creation of the State of Israel, Jews who lived in all of the Arab countries were forced out or harassed. The land lost by Jews who fled was estimated by the UN to be worth ten times that of any property lost by Arabs who fled Israel in 1948. When will the Jews be reimbursed? In 1948 Jordan expanded its borders and stole the West Bank from what was part of Israel before the 1948 war__, a piece that was NEVER inside the Jordan borders. In 1967, Israel took it back as a buffer from the combined half a dozen Arab armies that were poised to attack the lone Jewish state. It was expected that Arab states would make peace and Israel would return the land within a few months. The Arab states refused to negotiate with Israel. ……………………………………1994 by David Carasso.

▬►Why didn’t the PLO / PA accept any of the MANY two state solutions proposed by Israel & America and backed by many Arab leaders in the last few decades?
▬►If the Arab nations were interested in peace or simply aiding their brethren ,
they would support the West Bank as part of Jordan AND Gaza as part of Egypt
( as it was occupied by Egypt 1948-1967 ).
▬►And they would be using their oil billions to send food to Gaza in stead of guns & rockets.
▬►If the Gazan militants were really fighting for the Gazan people,
they would not launch their rockets from civilian neighborhoods.
▬►Yes - Gaza is occupied - by Hamas and their terrorist militants

MY SOLUTION:
Each of the Arab oil giants will deliver a half million dollars
worth of food to Israel every day for a year for Israel to deliver to Gaza.AND ISRAEL WILL ALSO CONTRIBUTE
a half million dollars worth of food every day to give to Gaza.

Let Hamas and Abbas follow Arafat and to try to turn that down!
Despite numerous appeals by Israel to negotiate, Abbas refuses.
Here are a few Abbas quotes:
"A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."(27 April 2009)
"We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it." (25 December 2010)
"It - the Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan to divide Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state - was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole."

Also- I believe in a three state solution: Israel + Gaza + West Bank

How would you deal with a geo-political adversary who worships a book:
Quran: 2:191 And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out,
for persecution is worse than slaughter…..Such is the reward of disbelievers.
And yes, Jews have the Bible & Christians have the New Testament, but they don’t kill people who burn their books - or draw anti-religious pictures. We cannot ignore these truths.

The only people reading your unhinged bigotry are people like yourself but as promised, here's p2/2 to you and your ideas of "geo-political adversary". I could write at length but will take a leaf from your play book and use links, tho' of course mine will not be bigoted, desperate or hysterical !

You just continue to keep plying the cheap, prejudiced, vulgar propaganda and I'll reply with scholarship and it won't be lashing out - it'll just be dispassionately batting you out of the ball park, as - as I've pointed out to you before, you're clearly a wannabe bully and actual bigot.

7 links in all and only one video but I don't feel the need to prove anything to you as I suspect that you have a very biased and limited perspective on 'proof' ; 'history' ; 'evidence' or 'accuracy', so I shall leave others to gauge the tone and content here. Remember again 'bensdad', your spamming prejudicial crap on this forum is not without karmic consequence and here endeth your smack in the mouth - for now !!

Finally, just one, two-part question - do you believe in 'Universal Human Rights' or not ? Read if you dare & go on bensdad - try calling me what you tried to call me before and see what I come back with.